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.
Real gross domestic product — the value of the production of goods and services in the United States, adjusted for price changes — increased at an annual rate of 0.2 percent in the first quarter of 2015, according to the “advance” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the fourth quarter, real GDP increased 2.2 percent.
The issue has little to do with what’s fair or isn’t, however. It’s about stabilizing the state tax system so it reliably produces enough money for education, social services, infrastructure and public safety in good times and bad.
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.
American eighth-graders demonstrated virtually the same dismal grasp of U.S. history, civics and geography in test results released Wednesday than they did four years ago, when the National Report Card assessments were last administered.
About four out of five students who entered high school in fall 2010 graduated last June — 80.8 percent, up from 80.4 percent for the previous class. But 11.6 percent of those destined for the class of 2014 dropped out, up from 11.4 percent for the previous year’s class.
The city of El Centro, Calif., has an unemployment rate of 19.9%, the highest of any U.S. metropolitan area and a level comparable to some of the most troubled European economies.
The U.S. economy slowed to a crawl at the start of the year as businesses slashed investment, exports tumbled and consumers showed signs of caution, marking a return to the uneven growth that has been a hallmark of the nearly six-year economic expansion.
A new study by the California Housing Partnership found that the state’s lowest-income households spend two-thirds of their income on housing, leaving little money for food, healthcare, transportation and other needs.
One of the state’s largest and most active health care unions — SEIU United Healthcare Workers West — submitted an initiative on Monday to boost California’s statewide minimum wage to $15 an hour by the year 2021.
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.
Since 2008, the CalChamber has identified bills that will improve the state’s job climate and stimulate the economy, designating these proposals as job creators. In general, the job creator bills include solutions that will enhance the state’s economy . . .
What struck me as noteworthy wasn’t the LAO’s California share of monthly growth chart, but rather the analysis’ first California map, which depicts a stark and concerning reality about the state’s job market; it is perilously reliant on one region: the Bay Area/Silicon Valley. This is concerning because it’s a relatively recent reality.
Data released Thursday by the Labor Department shows that the number of families with at least one unemployed member fell to 6.5 million last year from 7.7 million in 2013. But at 8%, the percentage of such families remains above pre-recession levels–6.4% in 2006 and 6.3% in 2007. A breakdown by racial group shows how the effects of the downturn still linger.