There is a substantial list of governance issues that former Gov. Jerry Brown said were important, but that he left on his desk for successor Gavin Newsom. For instance, although he and the Legislature enacted a very modest reform of public employee pensions, he repeatedly said it was only a first step and more was […]
Californians who like the idea of getting more paid time off work to care for a new baby may find good news and bad news in the details of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget. The bad news: The proposal is not quite as generous as it initially seemed. It doesn’t call for each worker to […]
California’s version of redevelopment hinged on the novel notion of “tax increment financing.” Local governments, cities mostly, could deem neighborhoods as “blighted,” borrow money through bonds to improve housing and other services, and repay the loans from the property tax “increments” that those improvements generated. For decades, those powers were gingerly used, although there were […]
What would you do with a $21.4 billion windfall? That’s essentially the question California is confronting amid record surplus projections in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first year in office. On one hand, the former San Francisco mayor showcased his progressive agenda by setting ambitious goals for universal preschool, expanding health coverage for undocumented immigrants, and proposing […]
Three-quarters of workers report living paycheck to paycheck at least some of the time. Half of households are unable to cover an emergency $500 expense. Housing costs in California just keep accelerating, hitting an all-time high in 2018. The basic building blocks of middle-class life — child care, health care, a college education — have […]
But doesn’t a college education help lift the prospects of poor students who attend? Sometimes, said Mr. Vedder, but you have to graduate first. “Forty percent of our kids who go to college don’t graduate. We have a tremendous dropout rate, much bigger than the high-school dropout rate. These kids are saddled with a certain […]
California’s community college system has already implemented reforms to improve its performance, including an overhaul of its student placement system and improved course and career guidance for incoming students. These changes are expected to improve completion rates for students seeking a two-year degree. But far too many community college students are still struggling to transfer […]
Then, in his budget proposal last week, new Gov. Gavin Newsom asked lawmakers to set in motion plans to add even more to the fund — a total of $4.1 billion more over the next four years. To those who would suggest that that’s more than Proposition 2 says the account can hold, Newsom pointed […]
You may have heard of Modern Monetary Theory, an approach to economics that is increasingly popular on the left, and which is sometimes mischaracterized (by advocates and especially detractors) as holding that budget deficits are either unimportant or inherently good for the economy. This week, freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Business Insider that MMT needs […]
Swiss mining giant Glencore provided nearly $1 billion in loans and advances to companies associated with an Israeli businessman accused of having corrupt ties to government officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The loans, made over a roughly 10-year period starting in 2007, were designed […]
Strike or no strike, after a deal is ultimately reached on a contract for Los Angeles teachers, the school district will still be on a collision course with deficit spending because of pensions and other financial obligations. School systems across California are experiencing burdensome payments to the state pension fund while struggling to improve schools. […]
Teachers in America’s second-largest school district began to strike Monday, pushing this city into the nationwide wave of growing educator activism and raising the pressure on a district already under financial strain. The strike comes after nearly two years of contract bargaining between the Los Angeles Unified School District and the United Teachers Los Angeles […]
[12th District] Conditions in the labor market remained tight. Contacts reported that worker shortages persisted across industries and skill levels. Nonetheless, several contacts reported an uptick in the pace of hiring. A major shipping and logistics business in Northern California hired more seasonal workers than usual in response to strong holiday demand. In the restaurant […]
Faced with the largest inventory of unsold finished homes in six years, Southern California’s homebuilders have resorted to price cutting. According to real estate watcher Zillow, 25.9 percent of new homes on the market in Los Angeles and Orange counties in the fourth quarter had price cuts — No. 17 of 34 major markets studied […]
California’s housing market ended 2018 on a down note, with sales for 2018 as a whole down for the first time in four years and home price gains showing signs of leveling off, Realtor economists reported Thursday, Jan. 17. A volatile stock market and political and economic uncertainty contributed to the market slowdown, according to […]