In a global survey of 40 nations about how concerned people are about climate change, America scored 8.78 on a scale from three to 12, where 12 is the most concerned. The U.S. was tied with the United Kingdom and only Poland, Israel and Australia scored lower, just by a hair.
Setting a higher minimum wage seems like a natural way to help lift families out of poverty. However, minimum wages target individual workers with low wages, rather than families with low incomes. As a result, a large share of the higher income from minimum wages flows to higher-income families. Other policies that directly address low family income, such as the earned income tax credit, are more effective at reducing poverty.
In the lower 48 states, the highest average price of regular gasoline is in Los Angeles, at $2.71, while Tulsa, Oklahoma has the lowest, at $1.72, according to an industry analyst quoted by the Associated Press. The price-tracking website GasBuddy.com says the average has dropped to $1.99 per gallon, the first time it’s been below $2 since March of 2009.
Drought, climate change and environmental curbs on water deliveries are fueling campaigns for more water storage in California. Sites Reservoir — as it would be called after the tiny settlement it would wipe off the map — is one of a handful of resurgent proposals challenging the notion that the era of big dam building is over.
Even as the recovery from the Great Recession brought booming corporate profits, most workers’ salaries have barely kept up with inflation. But now, as the nation edges ever closer to full employment and with layoffs near historical lows, there are growing indications that ordinary workers are finally starting to reap some of the gains of the 6 1/2 year-old recovery.
The state average climbed to $2.78 a gallon on Christmas Eve, up 13 cents in the past week after steadily falling since Labor Day. That’s compared with $2.01 a gallon across the U.S.
Buoyed by the roaring tech industry, unemployment in the Bay Area has dropped to pre-recession levels while parts of Southern California have bounced back more slowly.
Americans boosted spending in November as their incomes continued to tick up, a sign the economic expansion remains on track despite sluggishness overseas. . . Even with the higher outlays, households maintained a decent level of savings. The personal saving rate slipped to 5.5% in November from 5.6% a month earlier but remained at the second-highest level since the start of 2013.
California has once again been identified as the No. 1 “Judicial Hellhole” in the nation, according to the latest ranking of the “most unfair” civil litigation courts by the American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF). . . The report cites the latest data available from the Court Statistics Project of the National Center for State Courts, showing that more than a million new lawsuits are being filed annually in California’s state courts alone. Tens of thousands more are filed in federal courts here.
Six months after Gov. Jerry Brown called for a special session of the Legislature to fix the state’s crumbling roads, the potholes are just as deep, the motorists are just as irritated and the multibillion-dollar cost is just as high.
The reason is California only has a few refineries so when there are problems, there’s not much room for error, said Allison Mac, an analyst at GasBuddy.com.
There’s a simple reason reform always is derailed. “CEQA provides a way for anybody who wants anything out of a public agency to get some leverage over the situation – whether that’s unions, environmentalists, businesses, developers and even local governments themselves,” wrote William Fulton, in a California Planning & Development Report article last year. And no one from any interest group wants to give up leverage.
But the less-heralded weekly jobless claims, due Thursday morning, still matter a great deal, perhaps now more than ever. They are useful for gauging the state of the labor market in a relatively real-time manner. Based on the past year’s trend, historically low levels of claims and budding signs of wage pressure suggest the Federal Reserve may feel pressure to accelerate the tightening pace in 2016.
The U.S. economy expanded at a slightly slower pace than initially estimated in the third quarter, as steady consumer spending was offset by a slowdown in inventory investment.
It is easy to be confused about what effects minimum wages have on jobs for low-skilled workers. Researchers offer conflicting evidence on whether or not raising the minimum wage means fewer jobs for these workers. Some recent studies even suggest overall employment could be harmed. This Letter sheds light on the range of estimates and the different approaches in the research that might explain some of the conflicting results. It also presents some midrange estimates of the aggregate employment effects from recent minimum wage increases based on the research literature.