The California wildfires could be leaving deeper inequality in their wake

ALTADENA, Calif. (AP) — The sight of celebrity mansions and movie landmarks reduced to ashes can make it seem like the wildfires roaring through the Los Angeles area affected a constellation of movie stars.

But a drive through the charred neighborhoods around Altadena shows that the fires also burned through a remarkable haven for generations of Black families avoiding discriminatory housing practices elsewhere. They have been communities of racial and economic diversity, where many people own their own homes.

Some now fear the most destructive fires in California’s history have altered that for good. Recovery and rebuilding may be out of reach for many, and pressures of gentrification could be renewed.

Samantha Santoro, 22, a first-generation college student at Cal Poly Pomona, remembered being annoyed when the initial news coverage of the wildfires focused more on celebrities. She and her sister, who attends UC Berkeley, worry how their Mexican immigrant parents and working-class neighbors who lost their homes in Altadena will move forward.

“We don’t have like, ‘Oh, I’ll just go to my second home and stay there,'" Santoro said.

The landlord of their family's two-bedroom house with a pool had never increased the $1,650 rent, making it possible for the Santoros to affordably raise their daughters. Now, they're temporarily staying with a relative in Pasadena. The family has renters insurance but not much else.

“I think it’s hard to believe that you have nothing,” Santoro said, through tears, thinking of her parents. "Everything that they ever worked for was in that house.”

Altadena had been a mix of tiny bungalows and magnificent mansions. The community of 42,000 includes blue-collar families, artists, entertainment industry workers and white-collar ones. About 58% of residents are non-white, with one-fourth of them Hispanic and nearly a fifth Black, according to Census data.

During the Civil Rights era, Altadena became a rare land of opportunity for Black Americans to reach the middle class without the discriminatory practices of denying them access to credit. They kept homes within the family and helped others to flourish. Today, the Black home ownership rate there is at 81.5%, almost double the national rate.

That's impressive considering 92% of the 15,000 residences in Altadena are single-family homes, according to the 2023 Census American Community Survey. The median income is over $129,000. Just over 7% of residents live in poverty.

Victoria Knapp, chair of the Altadena Town Council, worries that the fires have irreparably changed the landscape for these families.

“Someone is going to buy it and develop who knows what on it. And that is going to change the character of Altadena," Knapp said, adding that those with fewer resources will be disproportionately hurt.

The family of Kenneth Snowden, 57, was one of the Black families able to purchase a home in 1962. That house, as well as the one Snowden bought almost 20 years ago, are both gone.

He is challenging state and federal officials to help all fire-affected communities fairly because “your $40 million home is no different than my $2 million home.”

Snowden wants the ability to acquire home loans with 0% interest. "Give us the ability to rebuild, restart our lives,” he said. “If you can spend billions of dollars fighting a war, you can spend a billion dollars to help us get back where we were at.”

Shawn Brown lost not only her home but also the public charter school she founded in Altadena. She had a message for fellow Black homeowners who might be tempted with offers for their property: “I would tell them to stand strong, rebuild, continue the generational progress of African-Americans."

She and other staff at Pasadena Rosebud Academy are trying to raise money to rebuild while looking at temporary sites in churches.

But even some churches have burned. At Altadena Baptist Church, the bell tower is pretty much the only thing still standing.

The Rev. George Van Alstine and others are trying to help more than 10 church members who lost homes with needs like navigating insurance and federal aid. The pastor is worried the fires will lead to gentrification, with Black parishioners, who make up half the congregation, paying the price.

“We’re seeing a number of families who are probably going to have to move out of the area because rebuilding in Altadena will be too expensive for them,” he said.

The 32-year-old photographer Daniela Dawson, who had been working two jobs to meet the $2,200 rent for her studio apartment, fled the wildfires with her Hyundai SUV and her cat, Lola. She lost almost everything else, including thousands of dollars of photography gear.

She did not have renter's insurance. “Obviously now I’m thinking about it. Wish I had it,” she said.

Dawson plans to return to Arizona, where she lived previously, and regroup. But she likely won’t be returning to Altadena.

FILE - An American flag hangs on the gate of a home destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Ari Rivera, rear, Anderson Hao hold each other in front of their destroyed home in Altadena, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE - A man walks in front of the burning Altadena Community Church, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in the downtown Altadena section of Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

FILE - Kenneth Snowden, left, surveys the damage to his fire-ravaged property with his brother Kim, center, and Ronnie in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire on Friday, Jan. 10, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

FILE - Actress Gloria Sandoval, middle, is assisted by volunteers after she lost her home in Altadena, Calif., as she leaves a temporary shelter at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

FILE - Residents are evacuated from a senior living facility as the Eaton Fire approaches Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)

FILE - Cesar Plaza becomes emotional while looking at his home destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Nic Coury, File)

FILE - Pedestrians help a firefighter stretch a hose as an apartment building burns, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in the Altadena section of Pasadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

FILE - An emergency vehicle drives through a neighborhood devastated by the Eaton Fire, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE - Residents embrace outside of a burning property as the Eaton Fire swept through Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)

FILE - A resident sprays their property with a garden hose as the Eaton Fire engulfs structures across the street, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025 in Altadena, Calif. (AP Photo/Ethan Swope, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sluggish December hiring concluded a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment have remained low.

Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, its first decline since June, from 4.5% in November, a figure also revised lower.

The data suggests that businesses are reluctant to add workers even as economic growth has picked up. Many companies hired aggressively after the pandemic and no longer need to fill more jobs. Others have held back due to widespread uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s shifting tariff policies, elevated inflation, and the spread of artificial intelligence, which could alter or even replace some jobs.

Still, economists were encouraged by the drop in the unemployment rate, which had risen in the previous four straight reports. It had also alarmed officials at the Federal Reserve, prompting three cuts to the central bank's key interest rate last year. The decline lowered the odds of another rate reduction in January, economists said.

“The labor market looks to have stabilized, but at a slower pace of employment growth,” Blerina Uruci, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, said. There is no urgency for the Fed to cut rates further, for now."

Some Federal Reserve officials are concerned that inflation remains above their target of 2% annual growth, and hasn't improved since 2024. They support keeping rates where they are to combat inflation. Others, however, are more worried that hiring has nearly ground to a halt and have supported lowering borrowing costs to spur spending and growth.

November's job gain was revised slightly lower, from 64,000 to 56,000, while October's now shows a much steeper drop, with a loss of 173,000 positions, down from previous estimates of a 105,000 decline. The government revises the jobs figures as it receives more survey responses from businesses.

The economy has now lost an average of 22,000 jobs a month in the past three months, the government said. A year ago, in December 2024, it had gained 209,000 a month. Most of those losses reflect the purge of government workers by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

Nearly all the jobs added in December were in the health care and restaurant and hotel industries. Health care added 38,500 jobs, while restaurants and hotels gained 47,000. Governments — mostly at the state and local level — added 13,000.

Manufacturing, construction and retail companies all shed jobs. Retailers cut 25,000 positions, a sign that holiday hiring has been weaker than previous years. Manufacturers have shed jobs every month since April, when Trump announced sweeping tariffs intended to boost manufacturing.

Wall Street and Washington are looking closely at Friday's report as it's the first clean reading on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.

The hiring slowdown reflects more than just a reluctance by companies to add jobs. With an aging population and a sharp drop in immigration, the economy doesn't need to create as many jobs as it has in the past to keep the unemployment rate steady. As a result, a gain of 50,000 jobs is not as clear a sign of weakness as it would have been in previous years.

And layoffs are still low, a sign firms aren't rapidly cutting jobs, as typically happens in a recession. The “low-hire, low-fire” job market does mean current workers have some job security, though those without jobs can have a tougher time.

Ernesto Castro, 44, has applied for hundreds of jobs since leaving his last in May. Yet the Los Angeles resident has gotten just three initial interviews, and only one follow-up, after which he heard nothing.

With nearly a decade of experience providing customer support for software companies, Castro expected to find a new job pretty quickly as he did in 2024.

“I should be in a good position,” Castro said. “It’s been awful.”

He worries that more companies are turning to artificial intelligence to help clients learn to use new software. He hears ads from tech companies that urge companies to slash workers that provide the kind of services he has in his previous jobs. His contacts in the industry say that employees are increasingly reluctant to switch jobs amid all the uncertainty, which leaves fewer open jobs for others.

He is now looking into starting his own software company, and is also exploring project management roles.

December’s report caps a year of sluggish hiring, particularly after April's “liberation day” tariff announcement by Trump. The economy generated an average of 111,000 jobs a month in the first three months of 2025. But that pace dropped to just 11,000 in the three months ended in August, before rebounding slightly to 22,000 in November.

Last year, the economy gained just 584,000 jobs, sharply lower than that more than 2 million added in 2024. It's the smallest annual gain since the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the job market in 2020.

Subdued hiring underscores a key conundrum surrounding the economy as it enters 2026: Growth has picked up to healthy levels, yet hiring has weakened noticeably and the unemployment rate has increased in the last four jobs reports.

Most economists expect hiring will accelerate this year as growth remains solid, and Trump's tax cut legislation is expected to produce large tax refunds this spring. Yet economists acknowledge there are other possibilities: Weak job gains could drag down future growth. Or the economy could keep expanding at a healthy clip, while automation and the spread of artificial intelligence reduces the need for more jobs.

Productivity, or output per hour worked, a measure of worker efficiency, has improved in the past three years and jumped nearly 5% in the July-September quarter. That means companies can produce more without adding jobs. Over time, it should also boost worker pay.

Even with such sluggish job gains, the economy has continued to expand, with growth reaching a 4.3% annual rate in last year's July-September quarter, the best in two years. Strong consumer spending helped drive the gain. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta forecasts that growth could slow to a still-solid 2.7% in the final three months of last year.

FILE - A hiring sign is displayed at a grocery store in Northbrook, Ill., Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)