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The Thumbtack.com Small Business Friendliness Survey is an annual, nationwide survey that asks ownerCoperators of small businesses about what it’s like to do business where they live. The survey aims to learn what creates a healthy, vibrant local business environment by asking the ownerCoperators of small businesses themselves about these issues. This year we use the survey data to grade 38 states and 82 metropolitan regions according to their performance along various metrics.

The authors show that the South San Joaquin Valley has largely recovered from the devastating damage of the Great Recession and is on track for greater economic and community success. Even though the region is the state’s and nation’s agricultural base, it is more economically diverse than widely believed, with a wide range of non-agricultural industries, and even a significant sector of green energy.

A first-time analysis of projects that applied to the Program but were denied due to insufficient availability of tax credits. Of those projects that were subsequently produced, a small minority elected to shoot in California without benefit of the Program. Instead, the overwhelming majority of projects denied for California tax credits opted to shoot outside the state in jurisdictions where tax credits are available.

In spite of a long-term decline in manufacturing employment, California maintains a large base of manufacturing capabilities and strengths in a diverse set of manufacturing industries, from food processing and furniture to aerospace and medical devices.

Los Angeles County has a unique history as a place of opportunity and growth—of providing a wide range of opportunity for people of all backgrounds, educational levels, and income groups. It is particularly famous as an engine of opportunity for the middle class—it is iconic as a place of suburbs clustered around suburbs. The absence of a core city center around which all regional activity is clustered is a testament to the overwhelming rise of a middle class who desired the relative space and distance that the suburban experience provides.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation has released its annual Enterprising States study, offering an in-depth look at the free enterprise policies being implemented to promote economic growth at the state and local levels. . . The 2014 report relates these policies and practices to the need for collaboration between education, workforce development, and economic development to positively combat the nation’s growing skills gap.

A University of Virginia Miller Center commission, chaired by former Governors Haley Barbour and Evan Bayh, released a report offering innovative, non-partisan, actionable ideas on how to create middle-class manufacturing jobs.

The California travel industry expanded for the fourth consecutive year following the 2007-2009 recession. In terms of both employment and real inflation-adjusted dollars, the California travel industry exceeded its pre-recession levels in 2013.

Los Angeles County has established very close economic ties with China. The Los Angeles Customs District (LACD) handles over 40% of total U.S., trade with China. Indeed, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together handle nearly 37% of total trade between China and the U.S. In fact, roughly 60% of two-way trade volumes at the Port of LA and the Port of Long Beach and over 50% of the total two-way trade value at the Los Angeles Customs District (LACD) are related to trade with China.

With the U.S. economy advancing slowly but surely in 2013 and with the nation’s major trading partners in various stages of recovery or expansion, international trade at the national level grew modestly last year and let to continued improvement in the Southern California goods movement and trade picture. The Los Angeles Customs District (LACD) held onto the top spot among customs districts for two-way trade last year, while container activity at the San Pedro ports – the largest port complex in the Western Hemisphere — finally rose above the 14 million container plateau of recent years. Transportation and warehousing employment increased for the third year in a row.

California’s overall clean economy continues to create new jobs and business opportunities across diverse sectors, ranging from water efficiency and recycling to energy and battery technologies. Between January 2002 and January 2012, employment in California’s Core Clean Economy jumped 20 percent to reach nearly 196,000. During the same time period, jobs in the larger overall state economy grew by two percent

With regard to the 2014-15 budget, we project that if the Legislature adopts the Governor’s May Revision, the state would end 2014-15 with $3 billion in the state’s two budget reserves: the Budget Stabilization Account (BSA) established by Proposition 58 (2004) and the state’s traditional reserve, the Special Fund for Economic Uncertainties (SFEU). This total is roughly $850 million higher than the administration’s estimate for these reserves ($2.1 billion).

But recent research shows that dynamism is slowing down. Business churning and new firm formations have been on a persistent decline during the last few decades, and the pace of net job creation has been subdued. This decline has been documented across a broad range of sectors in the U.S. economy, even in high-tech.

Low-wage and mid-wage workers still earned signifi cantly less in 2013 than before the Great Recession began, after adjusting for infl ation. This wage erosion continues a decades-long trend of widening wage inequality.

This report categorizes and provides information about $340 billion in California’s key retirement, infrastructure, and budgetary liabilities. In addition, this report provides a framework for the Legislature to consider in prioritizing repayment of these liabilities and makes recommendations on which liabilities to pay down first and how the state could address such costs in the future.