Citing a lack of diversity in corporate boardrooms, state lawmakers on Thursday sent the governor a bill that would require women to be included on the boards of directors of firms headquartered in California. The bill would require that publicly held corporations headquartered in the state include at least one woman on boards of directors […]
The plight of teachers in the half-dozen states who went out on strike over wages last spring resonated across the nation. A near-majority of people now favor raising teachers’ pay — a significant increase over a year ago — according to a poll by the education journal Education Next. An exception, though, is California — […]
And yet, despite all this, measured productivity growth across the developed economies has slowed. One possible explanation, recently considered by Andrew Haldane, chief economist of the Bank of England, is that while some companies rapidly grasp the new opportunities, others do so only slowly, producing a wide productivity dispersion even within the same sector. But […]
Gov. Jerry Brown’s last contract with the state’s highway engineers includes some sweet perks aimed at retaining the longtime road designers, planners and project managers who’d be charged with executing work funded by the gas tax he backed last year. Brown struck a two-year agreement with Professional Engineers in California Government that includes general wage […]
U.S. worker productivity accelerated this spring at the best pace in more than three years, a possible sign stronger business investment is giving workers the tools they need to boost output. The productivity of nonfarm workers, measured as the output of goods and services for each hour on the job, increased at an annualized and […]
The state Supreme Court last Thursday struck down one of the biggest efforts yet to force California public employees into 401(k) plans, giving unions another win in their effort to protect defined benefit retirement plans from elected leaders who want to rein in pension costs. The court sought to write a narrow decision, finding that […]
A humming U.S. economy is pushing inflation up to levels that the central bank considers healthy. But there’s a downside: Americans’ paychecks are barely keeping up. Consumer prices rose 2.9% over the past year, a rate last exceeded in late 2011, the Labor Department said Friday. Core prices—those outside of volatile food and energy-related expenses—climbed […]
Unfilled jobs are piling up in the transportation, retail and business-services sectors as workers become scarce in the fast-growing economy. The number of available jobs grew by nearly 750,000 this spring, compared with a year earlier, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. There were 6.7 million job openings on average in the three months […]
The Sacramento City Council vote to place a tax increase on the November ballot is representative of what we’ll see around the state in many localities: a call for more taxes to maintain basic services when in reality the money is needed to meet pension obligations. In one sense the argument that the money is […]
For the past century, a public pension was an ironclad promise. Whatever else happened, retired policemen and firefighters and teachers would be paid. That is no longer the case. Many cities and states can no longer afford the unsustainable retirement promises made to millions of public workers over many years. By one estimate they are […]
U.S. workers received their biggest pay increases in nearly a decade over the 12 months through June, a sign the strong labor market is boosting wages as employers compete for scarcer workers. The Labor Department’s employment-cost index rose 2.8% in the year to June compared, the government said Tuesday. Wages and salaries, which account for […]
In January 2012 California Governor Jerry Brown announced he would ask California voters to approve temporary increases in income and sales taxes. Later that year his proposal was embodied in Proposition 30. Projected by the Legislative Analysts Office to raise $6 billion per year for four years and smaller amounts for three years (ie, $42 […]
For the first time in six years, the share of U.S. workers offered health insurance through their employer has risen, a sign a tighter labor market is prompting businesses to offer more generous benefits. In March, 69% of private-sector employees were offered medical benefits from their employer, according to an annual survey the Labor Department […]
As far back as the industrial revolution, major innovations have traveled swiftly from company to company and industry to industry, an economy-boosting phenomenon called diffusion. Today, there is mounting evidence this engine of growth seems to be misfiring, a phenomenon some economists say helps explain the slowdown in productivity growth bedeviling developed economies. Productivity, usually […]