California uses more of it than any other state: Nearly 20% of all groundwater withdrawals in the United States occur in California. The importance of this underground water source to the socioeconomic and environmental health of our state cannot be overemphasized.
“The giant lobbying group, which represents 13,500 large and small employers, posted a near-perfect score in efforts this year to defeat legislation it labeled “job killers.”
This year, the chamber went gunning for 38 such bills. Only one made it through both the Democratic Party-dominated Legislature and landed on the governor’s desk.”
Since just before the start of the 21st century, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has failed to rise despite soaring levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and years of dire warnings from environmental advocates.
The Employment Development Department said today that statewide unemployment rose to 8.9 percent in August, up two-tenths of a point. But statewide payrolls grew by 29,100 – the second highest payroll growth in the nation.
Los Angeles County’s unemployment rate climbed back into double digits in August, reaching 10.1 percent, according to state figures released Friday.
“In many ways California’s economy these days resembles a Charles Dickens novel.
The state’s coastal areas are starting to resemble better times. Unemployment rates have plunged and housing prices have skyrocketed faster than anywhere in the country.
But inland areas can’t shake the worst of times. Unemployment remains in double digits. Central Valley farmers recently struggled through a bone-dry spring as state and federal authorities repeatedly cut their water deliveries. And incomes in the inland regions lag coastal parts of California.”
Citing the healthier housing market, improved state budget situation and the prospect of a new downtown NBA arena, UOP economist Jeff Michael said Thursday that Sacramento’s job market will pick up steam in 2014 and 2015.
Even as the economy shows signs of improvement and poverty levels off, new U.S. census data suggests the gains are halting and uneven. Depending on education, race, income and even marriage, not all segments of the population are seeing an economic turnaround. In 45 states and the District of Columbia, poverty rates remained steady at high levels. Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, was one of just three states posting increases, from 22.6 percent to 24.2 percent. California and New Hampshire were the others.
Teenagers and young adults are still mired in dire levels of unemployment in Los Angeles County, years after the recession officially ended. New estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal that last year, the unemployment rate for Angelenos ages 20 to 24 had stagnated at 19%. Joblessness was even higher for Angelenos between the ages of 16 and 19, with 41% of those in the labor force still unemployed, according to the new estimates from the American Community Survey.
Poverty continued creeping upward in the Los Angeles area last year, long after the declared end of the recession, new estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau show. The numbers are another sign of continued suffering after the economic downturn: More than 17% of people in the Los Angeles, Long Beach and Santa Ana metropolitan area lived below the poverty line last year. That number rose year by year since 2007, when roughly 13% lived in poverty. . . . “What is significant and new is that poverty is not rising and falling with the rest of the economy, it is just continuing to rise,” wrote Bill Parent, associate dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “This is a terrible ‘new normal.’ The rising tide isn’t lifting all the boats.”
The Sacramento metro area had the highest business bankruptcy rate in the United States, global information service company Experian announced Wednesday. . . . Other California cities noted in the analysis: Bakersfield had thesecond highest business bankruptcy at 2.16 percent; San Francisco had the fastest businesses to pay bills after contracted terms at 3.2 days; and San Diego had the fourth lowest delinquency rate at 3.13 percent.
As the economy improves and states continue to vie for new investment and jobs, they also seek the attention of site consultants who help companies make their new facility and expansion decisions. With that in mind, Area Development’s fourth annual Top States for Doing Business survey of site consultants ranks the states based on their number of mentions in 17 categories (scores were weighted based on position in each category and then overall).
But the recovery has left many young people behind. The official unemployment rate for Americans under age 25 was 15.6% in August, down from a peak of nearly 20% in 2010 but still more than 2½ times the rate for those 25 and older—a gap that has widened during the recovery. Moreover, the unemployment rate ignores the hundreds of thousands of young people who have taken shelter from the weak job market by going to college, enrolling in training programs or otherwise sitting on the sidelines. Add them back in, and the unemployment rate for Americans under 25 would be over 20%. Even those lucky enough to be employed are often struggling. Little more than half are working full time—compared with about 80% of the population at large—and 12% earn minimum wage or less. The median weekly wage for young workers has fallen more than 5% since 2007, after adjusting for inflation; for those 25 and older, wages have stayed roughly flat.
Workers in California would be paid at least $10 an hour in 2016 under a bill passed by the legislature Thursday, a measure likely to make the state the first to guarantee such a high minimum wage.
Dozens of measures that unions wanted to enhance their members’ incomes, fringe benefits, bargaining positions and procedural rights were enacted, albeit not always as extensively as they wished. Just as consistently, legislation that unions opposed fell by the wayside, even when it had broad public support, or even when Gov. Jerry Brown, their on-again, off-again ally, wanted it. An overhaul of the California Environmental Quality Act was the most conspicuous example.