Two back-to-back events last month frame California’s educational conundrum. A Superior Court judge in Los Angeles County rebuffed efforts by state schools Supt. Tom Torlakson and other state officials to block a lawsuit alleging that California has failed to teach reading to some black and Latino children. The suit, filed on behalf of children in […]
Using 4 decades of variation in the federal and state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), we estimate the impact of exposure to EITC expansions in childhood on education and employment outcomes in adulthood. Reduced-form results suggest that an additional $1,000 in EITC exposure when a child is 13–18 years old increases the likelihood of completing […]
U.S. hiring cooled but remained solid in July and the unemployment rate fell, showing the labor market remains firmly in expansion mode. U.S. nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 157,000 in July, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate, a seasonally adjusted 3.9%, ticked down from 4.0% the prior month. (Follow our live analysis.) […]
The California Supreme Court issued a decision on April 30, 2018 in Dynamex Operations West Inc. v. Superior Court which significantly changed the standard for determining independent contractor versus employee status in California. The state’s business community is deeply troubled by this court decision and believes that the Legislature needs to urgently consider a bill […]
White House economists have identified a potential stumbling block to maintaining the U.S. economy’s momentum: a lack of well-trained workers. The economy appears poised to expand this year at the fastest clip since the recession ended in 2009. That has allowed employers to extend their streak of consistent hiring, which began in 2010, and push […]
California gained a meager 800 net jobs in June, while the unemployment rate held steady at a record low of 4.2%, according to data released Friday by the state’s Employment Development Department. The June numbers represent a pullback from May, when the Golden State added 7,200 jobs. And the gains in May were much smaller […]
Renewed economic growth, a booming job market, and the evolving nature of work are transforming the face of the labor market, resulting in changes in the skills American employers need, as well as new and different opportunities for American workers. In the United States, investment in skill development is largely “frontloaded” during the first 25 […]
In many ways, the oil business in the U.S. has never been better, with domestic producers in a growing number of states churning out barrels of crude in record numbers. But California’s output is going in the opposite direction — part of a larger, steady decline that began in the mid-1980s. For all of its […]
Strain admits that this is just a guess, and finding corroborating evidence is hard. He also usefully lists other theories. With thanks and apologies to him, here’s a summary of his summary. (1) There’s more “slack” in labor markets than standard employment statistics indicate. People who had given up looking for work are re-entering the […]
California’s ballot initiative process, created 107 years ago to bypass a corrupt state government in Sacramento, is a form of “direct democracy” by which voters make policy themselves, at the ballot box. In recent years, however, it has also become a playground for enormously wealthy people, who use their personal resources to promote their preferred […]
Workers are choosing to leave their jobs at the fastest rate since the internet boom 17 years ago and getting rewarded for it with bigger paychecks and/or more satisfying work. Labor Department data show that 3.4 million Americans quit their jobs in April, near a 2001 peak and twice the 1.7 million who were laid […]
San Francisco restaurateurs have been preparing for the $15 mark and its corresponding fallout for four years. Despite the anticipation for what has finally arrived, many continue to struggle with finding a balance, because tactics such as adjusting service models, cutting staff and raising prices can only go so far. “It’s a catch-22. People need […]
The minimum wage in San Francisco increases to $15 an hour July 1 under a ballot measure approved by voters in 2014. San Francisco is the first major city in California to hit the magic $15 mark, but it won’t be the last. Two years ago, California lawmakers approved a plan to increase the state’s […]
Americans are burdened with about $1.4 trillion in student loan debt. One in four has a low wage job, which is by far the highest proportion of any advanced economy. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of thousands of open positions in the U.S. in fields like cybersecurity, cloud computing, computer programming, data science, tech support and […]
Hundreds of thousands of Americans started looking for jobs and employers added 213,000 to their payrolls last month, the Labor Department said Friday. Many of those job seekers were snapped up by employers while some were counted as unemployed while they sought out work, which helped push the jobless rate up to 4.0%, from an […]