Nearly four-fifths of the state rebates went to households earning $100,000 or more, according to a state survey of buyers. Nearly half of those getting rebates for Tesla’s premium electric sedan earned at least $300,000.
And yet, the latest census bureau report says that California is both the wealthiest state and has the highest poverty rate in the country at 24 percent — meaning almost a quarter of Californians live in poverty. In a big state like California that’s a lot of people — almost 9 million — or about the number of people living in New York City.
The report from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research shows earnings growth in the manufacturing sector in Silicon Valley is up almost 30 percent.
Most people will have the impression that the 288,000 jobs created last month were full-time. Not so. . . Full-time jobs last month plunged by 523,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What has increased are part-time jobs. They soared by about 800,000 to more than 28 million. Just think of all those Americans working part time, no doubt glad to have the work but also contending with lower pay, diminished benefits and little job security.
The news symbolizes to many, particularly those in politics, that California has completely weathered the worst recession since the Great Depression and is once again leading the nation, if not the world, in economic progress.
That interpretation, however, does not comport with the decidedly mixed bag of what’s really happening in our economy.
On average, California’s economic growth will be far below its potential. In most of the state it will be disappointingly low to dismal, as California’s economy is held back by well-meaning but seriously flawed regulations. At the same time, a few super-performing cities may see spectacular growth, at least for a few years.
What if they gave a recovery, and the middle class were never invited? Well, that’s an experiment we are running now, and, even with the recent strengthening of the jobs market, it’s not looking very good.
Today, we have some new extremes. Some of our coastal communities are as wealthy as any in the world. At the other extreme, we have some of America’s poorest communities. San Bernardino, for example, has America’s second-highest poverty rate for cities with population over 200,000.
Thanks to high birth and immigration rates over the last several decades, California has one of the nation’s lowest proportions of over-65 residents – but it also has one of its higher elderly growth rates, a new Census Bureau report reveals.
For people who moved from one county to another, moving because of a job-related reason rose with the distance of the move: 23 percent of moves less than 50 miles and 48 percent of those 500 miles or more. Moving for housing-related reasons showed change in the opposite direction, comprising 42 percent of shorter distance moves and 18 percent of longer distance ones.
Thomas Piketty has recently attracted widespread attention for his claim that capitalism will now lead inexorably to an increasing inequality of income and wealth unless there are radical changes in taxation. Although his book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” has been praised by those who advocate income redistribution, his thesis rests on a false theory of how wealth evolves in a market economy, a flawed interpretation of U.S. income-tax data, and a misunderstanding of the current nature of household wealth.
Last year’s overall population growth, driven largely by the state’s having many more births than deaths, continued the slow pattern of the last decade. Immigration from other states and countries, once the major driver of growth, has dropped to near-zero.
The 23% gap implies that women work an extra 68 days to earn the same pay as a man. Mr. Obama advocates allowing women to sue for wage discrimination, with employers bearing the burden of proving they did not discriminate. But the numbers bandied about to make the claim of widespread discrimination are fundamentally misleading and economically illogical
President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the salary gap between men and women is unfair and needs to be remedied, outlining an election-year effort by Democrats to highlight gender pay disparities and shore up support for the party’s candidates among women voters.
The portion of stay-at-home mothers with children under age 18 rose to 29% in 2012 from 23% in 1999, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Prior to that, the share of stay-at-home moms had declined for three decades as women in general flooded into the workforce.