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What do families in the middle of the income distribution actually make in cities around the United States?

Sparsely populated Glenn County’s court payroll this year averages about $120,000 per month, according to county documents. It employs just two judges. It can ill afford cutting an $800,000 check.

California employers would be required to pay their employees double for working on Thanksgiving or Christmas under a bill advancing at the state Capitol. The measure passed its first committee vote Wednesday.

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised its 2014 employment numbers Tuesday and sharply raised net job creation in California to nearly a half-million. The upward revision in California was accompanied by a downward revision for Texas, reversing what had been reported earlier to be a big edge for the latter.”

Workers who benefit from Oakland’s minimum wage hike might soon lose a service that enables them to work in the first place. It turns out the well-intentioned law is putting a financial squeeze on Oakland’s child care industry, leading some providers to panic. . . Asked if Lift Up Oakland anticipated problems for the city’s child care sector, spokeswoman Beth Trimarco said the campaign “did not specifically analyze impacts on all industries.”

Paradoxically, perhaps the city’s biggest strength is its sprawl. Unlike most other big cities in America, Houston has no zoning code, so it is quick to respond to demand for housing and office space. Last year authorities in the Houston metropolitan area, with a population of 6.2m, issued permits to build 64,000 homes. The entire state of California, with a population of 39m, issued just 83,000. Houston’s reliance on the car and air-conditioning is environmentally destructive and unattractive to well-off singletons. But for families on moderate incomes, it is a place to live well cheaply.

“Poverty is a very difficult issue, but as yet, the Capitol is just talking about applying bandages. It will be overcome only if California attracts private investment that creates real middle-class jobs and prepares potential workers for those jobs. “

Most developed countries impose little or no additional tax on the active foreign income of multinational companies. Today the United States is the only developed country with a worldwide system and a corporate income tax rate above 30%. Consequently, foreign companies can afford to bid more for acquisitions in the United States and abroad as compared to US companies.

“Although the council expects California’s economy to continue to grow, the state is not without its challenges. Growth has moderated recently, and the tremendous surge in tech-related hiring and associated construction projects is unlikely to be sustained longer term. Retailers and financial services firms are still posting only modest gains. Labor disputes at West Coast ports could push importers to make more permanent adjustments to their supply chains away from Los Angeles and Long Beach. Lower oil prices are weighing on the energy producers in Kern County, and a lack of water remains a challenge for farmers and residents alike. In addition, the state’s high costs of living, combined with sluggish wage and salary growth for middle-income households, has exacerbated the outmigration of residents. Few of these problems are truly new, however, and California seems to continuously prove that none of them are insurmountable.”

These data show that California needs to address significant, and growing social priorities, including significant improvement in adult educational rates at the high school and post-secondary level, increasing employment opportunities at a rate sufficient to serve past and forecast population growth, and reducing the state’s inequality and very high poverty rates.

It’s no surprise, then, that Latinos, who will shape much of America’s future, are overall doing better in Texas than in California. In Texas, they are more likely to be married and own a business or a home than their California counterparts – and far less likely be on some form of public assistance. One explanation has been the relative decline of the California economy, particularly in fields such as construction, manufacturing, energy and logistics, that have been traditional sources of upward mobility for working class, noncollege educated people.

Since January 2011, when Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr., became governor for the third time, the 63 publicly traded California companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 produced the best total return among the five states with the largest populations. California companies in the S&P 500 delivered returns of 134 percent; the closest big-state challenger was Florida, whose S&P companies had an 82 percent return, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Texas-based companies delivered 52 percent during the period.

Snowy and cold weather and the now-settled labor dispute at the country’s West Coast ports, which disrupted the supply chain, hurt economic activity early in the year. The persistent weakness in retail sales could temper expectations for a June interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve.

The number of people making new jobless claims across the country dropped by 36,000 to 289,000, according to a weekly report from the U.S. Department of Labor. California saw a moderate increase in new claims.

The forecast calls for steady gains in employment from now through 2017 and estimates total employment will grow at a rate of 2.4 percent this year, 2.2 percent next year and 1.5 percent in 2017. Payrolls are also expected to grow at about the same rate over the next three years.