While the economic effects of minimum wage laws are very complex and a subject of scrutiny within the economics community, there are much better ways to deal with systematic challenges in the labor market. Getting more people to work, reducing the barriers for businesses to hire and encouraging the accumulation of new skills are all strategies for promoting sustainable long-term growth in wages.
Wherever cities implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more last year, the latest data through December show that job creation downshifted to the slowest pace in at least five years.
According to Adibi, worker training, education and opportunity for advancement is the “fundamental issue,” so that the minimum wage is more “transitory.” . . . “The public policy should address the core policy here rather than put a band-aid on by increasing the minimum wage,” Adibi said.
First, part-time employment is a significant part of employment in California, up to nearly 20% of the California workforce. It grew from 17.7% of the workforce in December 2005 to over 21% in December 2011 during the Great Recession. It has gone down since December 2011, but at December 2015 was well-above pre-Great Recession levels.
Occupational licensing has grown not because consumers demanded it, but because lobbyists recognized a business opportunity where they could use government power to get rich at the public’s expense. . . Consumers end up paying $200 billion in higher costs annually, prospective professionals lose an estimated three million jobs, and millions more Americans find it harder to live where they want due to licensing requirements that vary by state.
In government-burdened California, any break is welcome. And we got it. The outlook for California’s economy improved against the other states, according to the eighth edition of “Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index,” just out from the American Legislative Exchange Council.
The percentage of people active in the labor force has dropped substantially over the past 15 years. Part of this decline appears to be the result of secular factors like the aging of the workforce. However, the participation rate among people in their prime working years—ages 25 to 54—has also fallen. Recent research suggests this decline among prime-age workers can be attributed in large part to lower participation from among the higher-income half of U.S. households.
Personal income increased $42.5 billion, or 0.3 percent, and disposable personal income (DPI) increased $37.8 billion, or 0.3 percent, in December, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) decreased $0.7 billion, or less than 0.1 percent. In November, personal income increased $44.3 billion, or 0.3 percent, DPI increased $33.4 billion, or 0.2 percent, and PCE increased $59.4 billion, or 0.5 percent, based on revised estimates.
The Labor Department’s recent release of biennial job market forecasts shows that the fastest-growing jobs tend to favor workers with more education, workers in jobs dominated by women and workers in urban areas, according to analyses by Jed Kolko, an economist based in San Francisco.
While gas taxes raked in 18 cents on the gallon in the recent past, the Times added, last year receipts plunged to 12 cents a gallon — with analysts predicting another drop this summer to just 10 cents.
In contrast, California’s new conservatism, often misleadingly called progressivism, seeks to prevent change by discouraging everything – from the construction of new job-generating infrastructure to virtually any kind of family-friendly housing. The resulting ill-effects on the state’s enormous population of poor and near-poor – roughly-one third of households – have been profound, although widely celebrated by the state’s gentry class.
The State of California added 22,700 private sector jobs during the month of January, according to the ADP Regional Employment Report . . .
Tax propositions might rain down on Bay Area residents like an El Niño downpour this year as cities, counties, school districts and agencies try to persuade voters to pay for improved transit, smoother roads, school repairs, city building rehab, and bay water and wildlife conservation.
Gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic output, expanded at a 0.7% seasonally adjusted annualized rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. The economy had advanced 2% in the third quarter and 3.9% in the second quarter.
The share of U.S. workers in unions last year was unchanged at 11.1%, according to Labor Department figures released Thursday, a reflection of the labor movement’s struggle to reverse years of stagnation that followed decades of declines. . . Membership in the private sector rose slightly to 6.7% from 6.6% in 2014 as unions added 195,000 more members there. The public sector had 23,000 more unionized workers in 2015 than it did the year before, but the membership rate fell to 35.2% from 35.7% over that period due to a larger increase in nonunion government workers.
