Minimum wage earners in Los Angeles County see higher wage minimums, better than that in most of the rest of the country. However, the hourly wage in the county varies, depending on which community you work in.
Photo from the L.A. Daily News Negatives Collection, UCLA Library
1946. Veteran Jesse Swatton and his family live in a tent due to a serious shortage of housing in California after the end of World War II. During the war, construction of new housing in Los Angeles came to a halt. After the war ended, U.S. servicemen from Southern California returned home to start new families, joined by other veterans who had passed through California during the war and decided to return to settle here. There were plenty of available jobs, but, the area was unprepared to house this influx of new families. By 1946, the shortage pushed desperate families to find whatever housing they could. The late, famed L.A. Times columnist Jack Smith wrote of his own experience during that time.
Life and Death of P-22 - L.A.'s Most Famous Mountain Lion
