Unemployment and poverty in California’s Imperial Valley

Correspondents for the World Socialist Web Site visited this agricultural region, located astride California’s border with Mexico a two-hours’ drive from San Diego, to speak with residents about the area’s acute social crisis. Long a major producer of fruits and vegetables, the Imperial Valley and its county seat, El Centro, have been gripped by home foreclosures, unemployment, and hunger.

Even before the onset of the financial crisis in September of 2008, conditions in El Centro were bad. In 2007 the poverty rate in the surrounding county was 21.7 percent, about 9 percent higher than the national average that year. According to the Imperial Valley Food Bank, last year 45,000 people living in area households reported experiencing hunger or food insecurity. These figures are undoubtedly much higher today. Social conditions in El Centro, poor even during times of economic prosperity, are now disastrous.

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