With avian flu devastating a significant portion of the nation’s egg-laying hens, major food companies and restaurant chains are bracing for shortages and scouting the country to find alternative supply sources.
Gov. Jerry Brown, who got nailed for parking in a yellow zone, is pushing an amnesty program for millions of California drivers caught in what he called a “hellhole of desperation” from spiraling legal fines and fees.
About 15 percent of the 561,000 pensioners in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System live their golden years outside the Golden State, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis of fund data by The Sacramento Bee. The vast majority have flocked to low-tax or no-tax states, creating a veritable river of cash that flows out of California and into cities such as Las Vegas; Reno; Tucson, Ariz.; and Grants Pass, Ore.
The median monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in California was $1,350 in March, up 6.5 percent from a year ago. That was 43 percent higher than the national median of $940.
None of this should be surprising. The attractive inner city developments, especially the Pearl District, do not provide for the economic needs or wants of most people, as the population trend data indicates. Few households are drawn to buy less than one-half the space they want at nearly three times the price per square foot they would pay in outer suburbs like Forest Grove, Wilsonville or Hazel Dell.
“Pension reform also creates an alternative to tax increases,” DeMaio said in an interview. “And right now there are a lot of groups in California that are very concerned about the bevy of tax hikes that will be on the 2016 ballot.”
Like the legislation, the initiatives would raise the tobacco tax by $2 per pack of cigarettes to raise $1.5 billion annually for smoking prevention and smoking-related medical costs now borne by taxpayers through Medi-Cal, the state’s healthcare program for the poor.
The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, rose just 0.3% in March from a year earlier, the same increase as the previous month, the Commerce Department said Thursday.
Based on those cities’ building permit processing history over the last three to five years and estimates from about 20 development companies, Reaser’s group concluded that regulation could represent up to 55.9 percent or $480,746 of the cost of a new $860,000 apartment or condo in Carlsbad.
The state’s cap-and-trade program, launched nearly three years ago, offers one of the few real-world laboratories on how to reduce heat-trapping emissions. It expanded this year to fine companies that produce gasoline and other fuels, prompting predictions that consumers will see a spike in prices to cover the costs.
The target, contained in an executive order and expected to be folded into pending legislation, seeks to reduce emissions in California 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
Due to problems with refineries in California, gas prices rose sharply in the state and in the Sacramento region. The average price of a gallon of regular gas is $3.257 compared to $2.974 a week ago, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge Report.
While impacts of extending the Proposition 30 income surtax would be confined to those at the top of the economic ladder, other looming tax hikes would have a much broader effect and could hit the poor particularly hard, as a new report from the left-leaning California Budget and Policy Center implies.
Mr. Lee’s disquieting assessment actually jibed with a 2013 report by the state auditor, which stated that, until the state’s health insurance exchange actually started enrolling Californians in health plans, its “future solvency” was ”uncertain.” Thus, Covered California was listed as a “high-risk” issue for the state.
No newsflash here: San Francisco, after recently beating out Manhattan for both price and scarcity of offerings, has been crowned the worst city in the country for renters. But according to Forbes, the second worst city is not Manhattan. It’s Oakland. And the third worst: San Jose.