News

To put the CT in context, we note that these tax payments represent a small portion of the overall tax burden borne by California businesses. According to a study of 2011-12 business taxes by the Council on State Taxation—a trade association of multistate corporations—corporate income taxes made up only about 10 percent of the entire amount of state and local taxes paid by California businesses. The two largest taxes paid by businesses—property taxes and sales taxes—were each much larger than the total amount of state corporate income taxes.

. . . Census data shows that in 2012, 7.1 percent of California’s overall state tax revenues came from corporate income taxes. . . . This is an above-average share of state tax revenues derived from corporate income taxes. Specifically, the average share among the 50 states was 5.1 percent of tax revenues.

The Sacramento region placed 97th on a list of the 100 largest U.S cities ranked by employment rate for young people aged 20 to 24. For teenagers, the region placed 82nd.

The Brown administration  released a blueprint Thursday for increasing California exports and foreign investment, mostly though educating statewide businesses on trade opportunities and by strengthening relationships with federal and foreign trade officials.

Since the Great Recession began in late 2007, that path has narrowed because many of the next-tier jobs no longer exist. That means more lower-wage workers have to stay put. The resulting bottleneck is helping widen a gap between the richest Americans and everyone else.

Starting next year, the law will force fuel distributors into the same cap-and-trade marketplace as utilities and major manufacturers. The oil industry says it will lead to price increases of at least 12 cents a gallon immediately, while state regulators say any price spikes could vary widely, from barely noticeable to double-digits.

Unlike wealthier state residents who more easily can afford the new, often more comprehensive plans, or lower-income people aided by government subsidies, the LaPollas are part of a sizable segment of Californians slowly coming to grips with dedicating a greater percentage of their income to new policies.

In my recent op-ed entitled “Gone to Texas,” I discuss possible reasons for the large number of people who are migrating from California to Texas and why these numbers should be adjusted for population differences.

Texas experienced stronger job growth than the rest of the nation from 2000 to 2013, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Not only that, a pair of researchers note in a Thursday research publication, but Texas leads the nation in creation of jobs at all pay levels, too.

Job growth picked up in February as many employers shrugged off snowstorms and bitter cold across much of the U.S., suggesting resilience in the labor market that should allow the Federal Reserve to continue rolling back its bond-buying program.

California appeared to go in the opposite direction of the national economy in January, shedding a net 31,600 jobs that month, the state’s Employment Development Department reported Friday. 

California had 777,624 households with at least $1 million in assets in 2013, up from 750,686 in 2011, according to Rhinebeck, New York-based Phoenix Marketing. The Golden State had 1.9 million households that used food stamps in 2013, up from 1.6 million in 2011, according to Agriculture Department data.

MOUNTAIN VIEW – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today signed a broad agreement to develop joint projects and conduct mutually beneficial research in California and Israel.

The decisions made in all of the areas discussed in this analysis could result in changes to the six states’ demographics and economy, both initially and over time. For example, differing policies could result in migration or different settlement patterns initially. Over the longer term, the states’ economic development and other policies could alter their respective economies. The exact nature of these changes, both initially and over time, is unknown.

Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — increased at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 (that is, from the third quarter to the fourth quarter), according to the “second” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the third quarter, real GDP increased 4.1 percent.

The Commerce Department sharply reduced its estimate of fourth-quarter growth to a moderate 2.4% annual rate. Friday’s revision downsized big gains in consumer spending and exports from its initial estimate of 3.2% in January.