California Governor Gavin Newsom pushed back Sunday against pointed questions about the state’s cost-of-living pressures during a television interview, acknowledging housing failures while defending what he described as significant economic gains.
CNN anchor Dana Bash raised the affordability issue during a “State of the Union” interview tied to Newsom’s recently published book, Young Man in a Hurry. According to data from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, California’s prices run approximately 11% above the national average — the highest cost-of-living burden of any U.S. state. Bash noted she had spoken the previous evening with a California couple now living in Nashville who said they relocated because housing costs made homeownership and starting a family financially out of reach.
Newsom contested the framing. The state has recorded population growth over the past two to three years, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, and has climbed from the sixth- to the fourth-largest economy in the world by some measures, per the California Department of Finance. He cited what he described as California’s dominance across artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, agriculture, forestry, and manufacturing.
On cost pressures specifically, Newsom pointed to several state-level initiatives — among them a subsidized insulin program through the state’s CalRx Biosimilar Initiative, priced at $11, and a universal healthcare push. He also referenced what he described as the nation’s highest minimum wages for healthcare workers and fast-food workers under AB 1228, and the subsidization of more than 300,000 childcare slots through the California Department of Social Services. He also cited expansions to paid sick leave and an extension to eight weeks of paid family leave under California’s Employment Development Department, framing them collectively as part of a broader “parents’ agenda.”
The governor’s sharpest concession came on housing. “We’re as dumb as we want to be on housing, and we haven’t been able to get out of our way,” he said, describing the issue as central to many of the state’s broader problems. He argued that recently passed housing reforms — including measures such as SB 9, SB 10, and AB 2011 — which he said even critics on the political left, including commentator Ezra Klein, acknowledged as among the most consequential in a generation, represent a meaningful shift in approach.
California’s policy record is expected to face sustained scrutiny should Newsom seek the presidency in 2028. A University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll released Thursday placed former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg at the top of a hypothetical Democratic primary field. Newsom and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York each registered 15% support in that survey, while former Vice President Kamala Harris and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona each came in at 10%, according to the polling center.
