What was it in past decades? It doesn't seem particularly surprising that California would have a broad range of incomes. It contains some of the wealthiest and

What was it in past decades? It doesn't seem particularly surprising that California would have a broad range of incomes. It contains some of the wealthiest and highest cost-of-living sub-regions of major metropolitan economic hubs and it also contains communities in absolute middle of nowhere barren deserts. All of the American southwest has the barren desert, but only California has the coastal hubs in the same state. East coast and PNW has major coastal cities, but not the barren desert. Texas is the most similar, but a lot of "middle of nowhere" Texas is wealthy anyway because of oil.