A labor dispute is apparently delaying American potato shipments at American West Coast ports, thereby limiting supplies in Japan. Labor disputes have resulted in protests in ports in California and the Pacific Northwest over the past couple years.
There is no question that a uniform global system of measurement helps cross-border trade and investment. For this reason, labor unions were among the strongest opponents of 1970s-era metrication, fearing that the switch would make it easier to ship jobs off-shore.
Income inequality is in the headlines these days, and attention to this huge and growing problem is welcome. But to focus on inequality in income alone is to take a narrow view of the problem and what’s at stake. Mutually reinforcing inequalities in health, education, environment, neighborhood conditions, wealth, and political power have created an opportunity divide that higher wages alone cannot bridge.
In 2013, Hispanics had an estimated after-tax income of more than $605 billion. That figure is equivalent to almost one out of every 10 dollars of disposable income held in the United States that year. Foreign-born Hispanic households made up a sizeable portion of that figure: We estimate their spending power totaled $287 billion that year.
A new analysis from the California Budget Project (CBP) looks at how California could create its own state EITC and shows that a refundable state credit could provide an economic boost for more than 3 million households. In addition, a state EITC would help rebalance California’s tax system, under which low-income families currently pay an outsize share of their incomes in state and local taxes, and would also strengthen our state’s social safety net.
People who own all-electric cars where coal generates the power may think they are helping the environment. But a new study finds their vehicles actually make the air dirtier, worsening global warming.
Egg prices could jump by as much as 20 percent in California as a result of the the new rules, Dermot J. Hayes, an agribusiness professor at Iowa State University in Ames, told Bloomberg.
The mere anticipation of the change has already driven prices up by more than $0.25 over the past month in California. And that increase comes on the heels of what has already been a pretty unkind year for omelette prices across the country: wholesale egg prices are averaging nearly $2.30 per dozen, up almost 35 percent since the start of the 2014.
You are on your own, Southern California businesses, and can count on very little help, and, likely, much mischief, from Sacramento and various lower orders of government. To find a way out of stubbornly high unemployment and anemic income growth, the Southland will need to find a novel way to restart its economic engine based almost entirely on its grass-roots business, its creative savvy and entrepreneurial culture.
The basis for fuel-efficiency claims and the regulation of CO2 emissions are results obtained under “type-approval” tests. What was once a gap between the mileages achieved on test tracks and real-world roads has become a chasm, according to a recent report from Transport & Environment (T&E), a green pressure group. Analysis by the International Council on Clean Transportation, a consultancy, of data reported by car owners in Europe shows that in 2013 fuel-economy figures “on the road” were on average 38% worse than those advertised (see chart).
The California Climate Leadership Forum, starting at 1 p.m. at the Kaiser Center, will focus on the state’s climate policy and its impact on local communities, as well as new approaches to addressing climate change. State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León and Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins will deliver keynote addresses, as will Steyer, a big political player who spent $30 million in 2012 to help pass an energy conservation measure, Proposition 39.
The collapsing oil price that is reshaping the global economy could derail the green energy revolution by making renewable power sources prohibitively bad value, experts have warned.
Thursday’s report by the state Department of Finance found that natural increase – the difference between live births and deaths – added 243,000 California residents. The other 92,000 came from net migration to the state, the report shows. More California residents are leaving the state than moving in from other states, but immigration from other countries more than offsets that.
The economic boom is leaving behind workers in California who lost their jobs in manufacturing and construction during the Great Recession and won’t ever regain those vanished positions, and the Bay Area is at the forefront of the upheaval in those and other sectors, according to a reported released Wednesday.
California’s once-soaring population growth slowed markedly during the last two decades, barely keeping pace with the nation as a whole since 2000, and a new Census Bureau report indicates that the state’s growth will continue that pattern for the next half-century due largely to slowing birth and immigration rates.
The Pacific Coast represents the world’s fifth-largest economy, with a GDP of $2.8 trillion. By working together we are transforming our economies and influencing world markets for the better. Our regional model shows that it is possible to take serious action on climate change and simultaneously expand an economy with well-paying jobs. And we believe it can be a blueprint for other regions to take action.