Premium rate indices are calculated based on data from 51 jurisdictions, for rates in effect as of Jan. 1, 2014. The 2014 median value is $1.85, which is a drop of 2 percent from the $1.88 median of the 2012 study. Oregon’s premium rate index is $1.37 per $100 of payroll, or 74 percent of the national median. National premium rate indices range from a low of $0.88 in North Dakota, to a high of $3.48 in California.
Economic activity in the Twelfth District continued to improve moderately during the reporting period of mid-August through late September. Overall price and wage inflation remained modest. Retail sales grew slightly, and demand for business and consumer services increased moderately. Overall manufacturing activity picked up, while agricultural conditions were mixed. Real estate activity advanced, but growth in the residential sector varied across the District. Loan demand increased moderately.
The San Francisco Bay Area is in the midst of a strong recovery from the past decade’s economic downturn. However, the benefits of prosperity are not universally shared. In the Bay Area, more than 1.1 million workers — over a third of the total workforce — earn less than $18 per hour.
The California Tax Foundation on October 1 released the state’s first comprehensive study of California parcel taxes, identifying more than $1.9 billion in parcel taxes imposed annually on property owners.
Providing California families and businesses the infrastructure we must build to make possible the future they want, will require a 15-year investment estimated at $500 billion or more. The question is not whether we make that investment. It’s imperative we make it: After all, more than 38 million people live in California today, but we’ll have 50 million neighbors by the end of the next decade. The question is how we make the investment affordable.
The State has to be smarter about the way it plans and finances infrastructure development. Our current approach is too ad hoc. Voters and the Legislature authorize bonds for particular programs with little thought given to how those bonds fit into a larger infrastructure picture. We need to think longer-term and more strategically. Along those lines, my office has proposed the State develop a 25-year infrastructure master plan that would prioritize projects and provide a financing blueprint. We still think that’s a good idea.
Long-term state and local infrastructure financing also should be more fully incorporated into the year-by-year budget process. It should be stacked up against other public services, prioritized relative to those services and funded commensurate with that priority. State, local, Federal and private funding sources need to be considered and carefully coordinated to get the best infrastructure for Californians at the lowest possible cost.
This report provides an overview of the demographic, social, and economic characteristics of California’s population. Topics include income, poverty, education, health insurance coverage, language, place of birth, migration, and more. The tabulations in this report are based on special data runs from the American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample 1-year file.
Driving on deficient roads costs California motorists a total of $44 billion annually in the form of additional vehicle operating costs (VOC), congestion-related delays and traffic crashes.
In 2013, exports of goods and services directly and indirectly supported an estimated 11.3 million U.S. jobs. Goods exports which consist of manufactured products, agricultural products, natural resources, and used/ second hand products supported 7.1 million jobs while the export of services accounted for the remaining 4.2 million jobs supported nationally.
While the outlook for California’s jobseekers is considerably better than in recent years, substantial challenges remain. Unemployment remains high in many regions across the state, and persistent weakness in the public sector job market is undermining the overall strength of the economic recovery. Moreover, the current extended period of economic growth follows decades of wage stagnation and Great Recession will not be suffi cient to ensure broad-based economic growth that reaches workers across the wage distribution.
California’s per-job costs are higher than every other Western state, and most other large states. The high cost of creating additional jobs puts California at a substantial competitive disadvantage when attempting to retain or attract businesses that have a choice where to locate.
This report details how these nine Summit proposals are the foundation for rebuilding California’s struggling middle class and restoring upward mobility. It also highlights a wealth of opportunities for the Summit’s seven action teams to engage and collaborate to make them a reality.
This spring, payroll employment in the US reached an all-time high, finally surpassing the pre-recession peak of 138.4 million jobs in the first quarter of 2008. At that time many said that the 8.7 million jobs lost in the Great Recession had at last been re-gained. However, they are not the same jobs that were lost, nor will unemployment have returned to a level less than the 5% of 2008. Much press reporting during this long economic recovery has expressed worry that low wage jobs dominate the labor market rebound, that the middle income household has not advanced economically, and that most of the income gains of the US have gone to those with high incomes, skewing the distribution of income in the US towards the wealthy or high-income earners.
The topic of income inequality and its effects has been the subject of countless analysis stretching back generations and crossing geopolitical boundaries. Despite the tendency to speak about this issue in moral terms, the central questions are economic ones: Would the U.S. economy be better off with a narrower income gap? And, if an unequal distribution of income hinders growth, which solutions could do more harm than good, and which could make the economic pie bigger for all?
In its new Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households, the Federal Reserve Board provides a snapshot of the self-perceived financial and economic well-being of U.S. households and the issues they face, based on responses to the Board’s 2013 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. The report provides insight into numerous topics of current relevance to household finances, including: housing and living arrangements; credit access and behavior; education and student loan debt; savings; retirement; and health expenses.
The Golden State sets the gold standard for innovation and access to capital, and its economy is turning around. But “golden” could also describe the state’s costs of living and doing business.