In July 2014, among metropolitan areas for which estimates are available, Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, California, had the highest employment in manufacturing (510,900). In contrast, Fairbanks, Alaska, Laredo, Texas, and Punta Gorda, Florida, each had 700 workers employed in manufacturing.
A coalition of nonprofits say states are in a race to the bottom in the competition to win a giant Tesla Motors battery factory. In California, lawmakers are set to consider a tax and regulatory incentive package for the company.
Across the U.S., small-business lending has been stuck in a slow, grinding recovery behind most other types of business and consumer loans. At the end of the first quarter, banks held $585 billion in loans to small businesses, up 1% from last September but still 18% less than the peak of $711 billion in 2008, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
This report details how these nine Summit proposals are the foundation for rebuilding California’s struggling middle class and restoring upward mobility. It also highlights a wealth of opportunities for the Summit’s seven action teams to engage and collaborate to make them a reality.
Developing more startup companies based on UC Davis inventions has been a goal of Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi since she took over at Davis in 2009.
According to law firm Davis Polk, 208 (52%) of the 398 total rulemaking requirements have been met so far. It’s an improvement from 2012, when just 31% of the Dodd-Frank rules were in force, but still lacking.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation has released its annual Enterprising States study, offering an in-depth look at the free enterprise policies being implemented to promote economic growth at the state and local levels. . . The 2014 report relates these policies and practices to the need for collaboration between education, workforce development, and economic development to positively combat the nation’s growing skills gap.
A University of Virginia Miller Center commission, chaired by former Governors Haley Barbour and Evan Bayh, released a report offering innovative, non-partisan, actionable ideas on how to create middle-class manufacturing jobs.
The tax credits are offered to companies interested in expanding or relocating to California. GO-Biz is recommending 31 companies – including 11 small businesses – for a total of approximately $30 million in tax credits. According to the 31 companies, these credits could help create approximately 6,000 jobs and spur more than $2 billion in investment across California. These companies represent industries such as manufacturing, biotech, agriculture, food processing, aerospace, high tech, clean tech and more.
Los Angeles County has established very close economic ties with China. The Los Angeles Customs District (LACD) handles over 40% of total U.S., trade with China. Indeed, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together handle nearly 37% of total trade between China and the U.S. In fact, roughly 60% of two-way trade volumes at the Port of LA and the Port of Long Beach and over 50% of the total two-way trade value at the Los Angeles Customs District (LACD) are related to trade with China.
With the U.S. economy advancing slowly but surely in 2013 and with the nation’s major trading partners in various stages of recovery or expansion, international trade at the national level grew modestly last year and let to continued improvement in the Southern California goods movement and trade picture. The Los Angeles Customs District (LACD) held onto the top spot among customs districts for two-way trade last year, while container activity at the San Pedro ports – the largest port complex in the Western Hemisphere — finally rose above the 14 million container plateau of recent years. Transportation and warehousing employment increased for the third year in a row.
“In the last five months, we’ve seen 93 projects come through the Development Review Committee process,” Swearengin said. “Nineteen of them were fast-tracked and approved literally within a matter of hours or days within coming to City Hall.”
Thirteen California Indian tribes announced this week that they had struck a compromise to legalize online poker in California, but a successful law is not guaranteed because the powerful Morongo Band of Mission Indians is opposed.
The Assembly voted in favor of AB 1839, which would renew and increase a state tax credit — amounting to as much as $400 million a year — to better compete with generous tax subsidies available in such states as New York, Louisiana and Georgia, as well as in Canada and Britain.
In all, some 66 industrial projects—worth some $90 billion—will be breaking ground over the next five years in Louisiana, according to the Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance. Tens of billions of other new investments could be coming, says Louisiana’s economic development secretary, Stephen Moret. How many projects will actually get built remains to be seen.
