Heading into the third year of a prolonged drought, the Allens are among the many California farmers forced to make dire choices that could leave as much as 800,000 acres, or about 7 percent of the state’s cropland, fallow. While some think that estimate may be inflated so early in the planting season, the consensus is that drier and drier seasons are on the horizon.
While the people who decide where to make movies uniformly say that they’d prefer to work in their hometown, better subsidies that other states and countries offer has made that almost impossible to justify.
Probably the best single indicator is the unemployment rate. At 6.7 percent, it is now slightly more than 1 percentage point above the 5.2 to 5.6 percent central tendency of the Committee’s projections for the longer-run normal unemployment rate. This shortfall remains significant, and in our baseline outlook, it will take more than two years to close.
Preliminary estimates suggest that minimum wage increases are associated with no net changes in government benefit receipt in the pre-Great Recession Era. While minimum wage increases may aid some working families in leaving the welfare rolls, adverse labor demand effects may increase government benefits received by others.
Californians carried the nation’s fourth highest state and local tax burden in 2011, the Tax Foundation says in a new report, largely because its personal incomes are markedly lower than those of other high-tax states.
Personal income increased $47.7 billion, or 0.3 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $42.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, in February, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $30.8 billion, or 0.3 percent.
California renters must earn more than triple the minimum wage to afford a two-bedroom apartment, underscoring a housing shortage throughout the state, a new report said.
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.
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.
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.
The biggest issue facing the American economy, and our political system, is the gradual descent of the middle class into proletarian status. This process, which has been going on intermittently since the 1970s, has worsened considerably over the past five years, and threatens to turn this century into one marked by downward mobility.
Overall, in another sign that California’s economy is shaking off the recession, state tax officials reported Tuesday that the statewide median income – for 2012 – was $70,938, up 4.1 percent over the previous year. That’s for those filing joint tax returns. For individual returns, the 2012 median income was $35,910, an increase of 3.5 percent, according to the state Franchise Tax Board.
In this issue, the Regional Quarterly Report takes a look at state personal income for the third quarter of 2013. Growth slowed in 25 states, accelerated in 22 states, and was unchanged in 3 states and the District of Columbia. On average, state personal income rose 1.1 percent in the third quarter, compared with 1.2 percent in the second quarter.
Economic activity in the Twelfth District expanded at a moderate pace during the reporting period of late November through late December. Price inflation was subdued for most final goods and services, and upward wage pressures were modest overall. On balance, holiday retail sales increased relative to the year earlier. Demand for business and consumer services edged up. District manufacturing activity advanced. Output in agricultural and resource-related industries expanded. Demand for residential real estate climbed further, and commercial real estate activity improved. Reports from financial institutions indicated that loan demand increased.