News

California’s beer industry provides a nation-leading 242,000 jobs, according to a new study released by the Beer Institute, the Washington, D.C.-based national trade association.

The number of people making new jobless claims across the country dropped slightly by 1,000 to 298,000 from the previous week’s revised number, according to a weekly report from the U.S. Department of Labor. California scored the largest drop in new claims.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.2% in the second quarter after accounting for inflation, the Commerce Department said.

Californians already pay the nation’s second highest gas tax at 68 cents a gallon — and now it will go up again in January to pay for a first-in-the-nation climate change law.

Part of the attraction is the substantial tax reforms that occurred over the last 15 years in Canada. First among these is the dramatic reduction in the corporate tax rate, from 43 percent in 2000 to 26 percent today. The U.S. currently has a corporate tax rate of 39 percent, but lawmakers are reluctant to do what Canada did, i.e. lower the tax rate, for fear of losing tax revenue.

A hike in San Francisco’s minimum wage would benefit more than one in five city workers without harming the local economy, a new study concludes.

A new report by San Jose labor think tank Working Partnerships USA highlights an “invisible workforce” of janitors, landscapers and security guards keeping companies like Google Inc., Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. up and running.

For more than a decade, Texas Gov. Rick Perry has touted the “deal-closing” Texas Enterprise Fund and other cash incentives as a “job-creation machine.” A fifth of the companies that Texas attracted during the last funding cycle, in 2011 and 2012, were based in California.

California’s per-job costs are higher than every other Western state, and most other large states. The high cost of creating additional jobs puts California at a substantial competitive disadvantage when attempting to retain or attract businesses that have a choice where to locate.

Industrial companies and other businesses paid a combined $331.8 million for carbon credits in California’s latest cap-and-trade auction, state officials said Thursday.

When it comes to buying a home or renting an apartment, the Los Angeles-Orange County area is the most expensive market among the nation’s 100 biggest metropolises, according to a report released Thursday by the real-estate website Zillow.

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.

California is one of the most expensive states for businesses to operate, mainly because of high pay and related labor costs, says a new report commissioned by an arm of the state Chamber of Commerce..

Many cities and states are in the same rusty boat, having put off investing in bridges, wastewater systems, dams and other public works that need regular maintenance and upgrades. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates the country would have to spend $3.6 trillion to get the nation’s infrastructure in decent working order by 2020.

After a puzzling first-quarter contraction, growth has returned, though the recovery remains the weakest since the second world war. As of June, the expansion is now five years old, longer than the post-war average of 58 months . . .