Because of graduated taxation and government benefits, many of those people making 5 figures receive free or subsidized healthcare and other benefits from the CA government while paying a much lower effective tax rate. Essentially CA is just taxing the middle class but instead of the middle class it's the upper middle class.

An actually effective tax would be a wealth tax with no exemptions for all the homeowners sitting on 1000% gains and angrily voting against all new development. Highly taxing high incomes in my opinion _reduces_ socioeconomic mobility, since the wealthy don't pay rents and therefore spend much less than high income earners who are not yet wealthy.