01/10/2025

News

Public Education Finances: 2013

States and state-equivalents spending the most per pupil in 2013 were New York ($19,818), Alaska ($18,175), the District of Columbia ($17,953), New Jersey ($17,572) and Connecticut ($16,631). States spending the least per pupil included Utah ($6,555), Idaho ($6,791), Arizona ($7,208), Oklahoma ($7,672) and Mississippi ($8,130).

Research & Studies
Read More

Best Cities for Minorities: Gauging the Economics of Opportunity

“African Americans appear to be moving once again, but this time primarily to cities, many in the south, the very region they exited in huge numbers during the last century. Increasingly, they, as well as Latino and Asian households seeking a better future, are moving to opportunity cities. Between 2000 and 2013, the African American population of Atlanta, Charlotte, Orlando, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Raleigh, Tampa-St. Petersburg and San Antonio all experienced growth of close to 40 percent or higher, well above the average of 27 percent for the 52 metropolitan areas […] For Latinos, now the nation’s largest ethnic minority, nine of the top 13 places are held by cities wholly or partially in the old Confederacy, led by #1 Jacksonville, Florida. Current state projections in Texas indicate that Latinos will outnumber Anglos by 2025. The majority of newcomers to the South, notes a recent Pew study, are classic first-wave immigrants: young, 57 percent foreign born and not well educated; but they see the South as their land of opportunity.”

Research & Studies
Read More

California Environmental Quality Act, Greenhouse Gas Regulation and Climate Change

“This paper demonstrates that even the complete elimination of state GHG emissions will have no measurable effect on climate change risks unless Cali- fornia-style policies are widely adopted throughout the United States, and particularly in other countries that now generate much larger GHG emissions. As California Governor Jerry Brown, a staunch proponent of climate change policies, recently observed, “We can do things in California, but if others don’t follow, it will be futile.” . . . Nevertheless, the extent to which California’s GHG policies have and may be likely to inspire similar measures in other locations, is rarely, if ever seri- ously evaluated by state lawmakers or the California judiciary. Absent such considerations, imposing much more substantial GHG mandates may not only fail to inspire complementary actions in other locations, but could even result in a net increase in GHG emissions should population and economic activity move to locations with much higher GHG emission rates than California. “

Research & Studies
Read More

The Critical Role of Housing Access and Affordability in Reducing Poverty

none

Research & Studies
Read More

“Moving Dollars: Aligning Transportation Spending With California’s Environmental Goals”

To develop a vision and policies for moving a greater share of state transportation dollars to projects and outcomes that are more cost-effective and better aligned with environmental goals, a group of transportation advocates, experts and public officials gathered at the University of California, Los Angeles in October 2014 for a discussion sponsored by the University of California Berkeley and Los Angeles Schools of Law.

Research & Studies
Read More

The State of Immigration: US is Far Behind in the Race for Global Talent

Most Americans agree that the future of the U.S. economy depends on the ability of its businesses to compete globally. One of the key factors that allow U.S. employers to grow their businesses and create new jobs is their ability to recruit and retain talent from other countries. How well does the current U.S. employment-based immigration system support this goal?  Based on original research and analysis, Business Roundtable found that the United States falls short when compared to other advanced economies.

Research & Studies
Read More

How to Raise Wages

There is now widespread agreement across the political spectrum that wage stagnation is the country’s key economic challenge. As EPI has documented for nearly three decades, wages for the vast majority of American workers have stagnated or declined since 1979 (Bivens et al. 2014). This is despite real GDP growth of 149 percent and net productivity growth of 64 percent over this period. In short, the potential has existed for adequate, widespread wage growth over the last three-and-a-half decades, but these economic gains have not trickled down to the vast majority.

Research & Studies
Read More

Support for Redistribution in an Age of Rising Inequality: New Stylized Facts and Some Tentative Explanations

Despite the large increases in economic inequality since 1970, American survey respondents exhibit no increase in support for redistribution, in contrast to the predictions from standard theories of redistributive preferences. . . In particular, the two groups who have most moved against income redistribution are the elderly and African-Americans, two groups relatively more reliant on it.

Research & Studies
Read More

San Diego: Energy, the Economy and the Call for Pause

A report released today from the National University System Institute for Policy Research (NUSIPR) found that California’s lack of strategic coordination on energy policies is increasing energy costs in San Diego, hurting key industries, and burdening residents who are struggling to balance household budgets. The report entitled San Diego: Energy, the Economy and the Call for Pause encouraged policymakers to understand how energy policies impact costs, and consider whether the new mandates are fostering a more sustainable, cost-effective energy system.

Research & Studies
Read More

The Regional Distribution of Cap & Trade Funds

Cap-and-Trade revenues are primarily being spent in the southern Central Valley, the San Francisco Bay Area and Southern California. Though there are clear guidelines for geographically allocating 25% of the Cap-and-Trade revenues, clear guidelines have not been established to geographically allocate the remaining 75%. This report outlines three potential principles for allocating the remaining funds geographically

Research & Studies
Read More

California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences

Living in decent, affordable, and reasonably located housing is vitally important to every Californian. Unfortunately, housing in California is extremely expensive and, as a result, many households are forced to make serious trade-offs in order to live here. While many factors have a role in driving California’s high housing costs, the most important is the significant shortage of housing in the state’s highly coveted coastal communities. We advise the Legislature to address this housing shortfall by changing policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California’s coastal urban communities.

Research & Studies
Read More

Buying and Selling: Cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions and the US Corporate Income Tax

Most developed countries impose little or no additional tax on the active foreign income of multinational companies. Today the United States is the only developed country with a worldwide system and a corporate income tax rate above 30%. Consequently, foreign companies can afford to bid more for acquisitions in the United States and abroad as compared to US companies.

Research & Studies
Read More

California’s Social Priorities

These data show that California needs to address significant, and growing social priorities, including significant improvement in adult educational rates at the high school and post-secondary level, increasing employment opportunities at a rate sufficient to serve past and forecast population growth, and reducing the state’s inequality and very high poverty rates.

Research & Studies
Read More

Doing the Math on Teachers Pensions

In 2014 teacher pension systems had a total of a half trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities — a debt load that climbed more than $100 billion in just the last two years. Across the states, an average of 70 cents of every dollar contributed to state teacher pension systems goes toward paying off the ever-increasing pension debt, not to future teacher benefits.

Research & Studies
Read More

Hospitality and Tourism in Los Angeles County

Region is on track to greet 50 million visitors a year, and these visitors spent more than $18 billion in our economy this year.  At the same time, the hospitality and tourism industry also serves our 10 million local residents.  Accordingly, the report delineates the two separate components (traded versus local-serving), which are very different in terms of their composition, workforce needs, intermediate purchases and economic impacts — distinctions that have clear implications for how policymakers and stakeholders formulate programs to encourage not only more jobs but also better-paying jobs.

Research & Studies
Read More