News

We found, for all three major minority groups,   that the best places were neither the most liberal in their attitudes nor had the most generous welfare programs. Instead they were located primarily in regions that have experienced broad-based economic growth, have low housing costs, and limited regulation. In other words, no matter how much people like Bill de Blasio talk about the commitment to racial and class justice, the realities on the ground turn out to be quite different than he might imagine.

The nature of employment seems to be undergoing radical change. Among the trends weakening the traditional model of steady, full-time employment are on-demand work platforms like Lyft and Instacart; software to help companies schedule employees’ shifts almost in real time; and a desire among many workers for greater flexibility.

Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces..

The law also would prohibit any kind of discipline for employees — male or female — who discuss or ask about pay at work. And it would allow employees to challenge wages disparities with similar employees at different workplaces under the same employer.

Although unemployment is down, Torain said, she thinks many of the new jobs created pay relatively little. “The jobs being added aren’t jobs you raise a family on,” she said.

The percentage of voters who believe the state is on the right track is down 10 percentage points from February, even as its fiscal outlook continues to improve with revenue running billions of dollars ahead of estimates.

A week after Los Angeles became the largest city in the nation to adopt a major minimum-wage increase, suburban Irvine in neighboring Orange County is considering going in the opposite direction.

As the condition of the pavement worsens and the price to repair it grows, ideas that seemed outlandish a few years ago are back on the table, including a plan by a San Jose lawmaker that would raise vehicle license and registration fees as well as the gas tax.

As the condition of the pavement worsens and the price to repair it grows, ideas that seemed outlandish a few years ago are back on the table, including a plan by a San Jose lawmaker that would raise vehicle license and registration fees as well as the gas tax.

Not to detract from the governor’s environmentalist cred, or the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The issue is transcendent. But the climate change fight won’t be won by swatting mosquitoes or empty symbolism.

Basic, common-sense protections like these are often assailed by business interests as job-killing overregulation. There’s practically a cottage industry of corporate groups whose job is to attack California laws that support workers’ rights and oppose any new worker protections. Despite these attacks, California has passed some of the strongest workers’ rights laws in the nation.

But even proponents such as Jacobs acknowledge that cities are raising the minimum wage to levels that have not yet been fully vetted. “There is no simple existing economic model consistent with the empirical minimum wage research literature that can be used to estimate the impact of a minimum wage law, taking into account all the direct and indirect effects as they course through a regional economy,” wrote Jacobs and several colleagues advising Los Angeles council members.

The DOF projects that the the state will grow from 37.3 million residents in 2010 to 51.7 million in 2060. This is a 0.7 percent annual growth rate over the next 50 years. By contrast, California’s growth rate was 1.7 percent annually over the last 50 years (1960-2010), and a much higher 3.0 percent in the growth heyday of 1940 to 1990. However, even with this slower rate, California is expected to grow slightly more quickly than the nation (0.6 percent annually).

The California unemployment rate slid to 6.3% in April — its lowest level in seven years — and employers in the state added 29,500 nonfarm payroll jobs..

“This paper demonstrates that even the complete elimination of state GHG emissions will have no measurable effect on climate change risks unless Cali- fornia-style policies are widely adopted throughout the United States, and particularly in other countries that now generate much larger GHG emissions. As California Governor Jerry Brown, a staunch proponent of climate change policies, recently observed, “We can do things in California, but if others don’t follow, it will be futile.” . . . Nevertheless, the extent to which California’s GHG policies have and may be likely to inspire similar measures in other locations, is rarely, if ever seri- ously evaluated by state lawmakers or the California judiciary. Absent such considerations, imposing much more substantial GHG mandates may not only fail to inspire complementary actions in other locations, but could even result in a net increase in GHG emissions should population and economic activity move to locations with much higher GHG emission rates than California. “