Allied Van Lines moved 37 percent more families out countywide than in last year, down from 43 percent net emigration in 2012. U-Haul officials, who observed 5.9 percent net immigration to the city of San Diego in 2012, said this reversed last year to 1.6 percent more customers moving out in 2013.
The Los Angeles 2020 Commission, created by the City Council, didn’t mince words in its report, “A Time for Truth,” declaring, “Los Angeles is barely treading water while the rest of the world is moving forward. We risk falling further behind in adapting to the realities of the 21st century and becoming a city in decline.”
Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday his administration would soon declare that California is officially in the midst of a drought.
Mickelson still lives in California, but other wealthy people say they have moved out mainly or partly because of skyrocketing tax rates. Whether you sympathize or not, millionaires’ migrating out of California has serious consequences to the state’s bottom line and is something state leaders are watching closely.
Meanwhile, legislators who voted to abolish redevelopment have been writing proposals to re-establish it, with changes, under some other name.
Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley multimillionaire and registered Republican who once ran for governor and, briefly, U.S. Senate, wants state voters to endorse the wage jump that he predicts would nourish the economy and lift low-paid workers from dependency on food stamps and other assistance bankrolled by taxpayers.
American employers added a disappointing 74,000 jobs in December, a tally at odds with recent signs that the economy is gaining traction and moving beyond the supports put in place after the recession.
U.S. payrolls rose by 74,000 last month, the smallest monthly gain in three years, the Labor Department said Friday. The figure marked a sudden pullback from growth of 200,000 or more in the prior two months.
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate fell to 6.7% from 7%, though the decline was largely the result of people leaving the workforce. Economists had expected a gain of 200,000 jobs and a 7.0% jobless rate, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey.
California energy regulators have proposed a set of sweeping changes to the way most of the state’s residents pay for power. The current system, in which electricity prices are based on the amount used, would be fundamentally altered by 2018, under the proposal issued this week by the California Public Utilities Commission.
Inside the governor’s 2013-14 budget plan is a proposal to make it easier to for voters to implement infrastructure financing districts, which are similar to redevelopment in that they allow local governments to fund public infrastructure through tax increment financing.
Gov. Brown summarily rejected the notion of a per-barrel tax on California oil as it comes from the ground, a move that sharply limits the political options of the tax’s backers who hoped to get a bill through the Legislature to raise perhaps $2 billion annually.
The governor pegs the total 2014-15 budget of the general fund, special funds and bond funds at $154.9 billion, but the real number is well over $200 billion, when federal funds are included. That’s the equivalent of more than 10 percent of California’s entire economic output.
Although his proposed budget would raise general-fund spending by more than 8%, to $106.8 billion, he continued to portray himself Thursday as a necessary check on fellow Democrats eager to spend. For example, Brown declined to commit money for universal preschool, one of lawmakers’ top priorities.
Brown, citing an ever-increasing dependence on taxes from highly volatile capital gains, said he, too, would resist pressures to ramp up permanent spending and wants to divert much new revenue into paying down debt and building up reserves to cushion future downturns.
California ended the 2013 calendar year with a burst of tax receipts as the economic recovery continued to boost jobs, incomes, profits, and spending. Revenues flowing into the State’s General Fund coffers totaled $10.6 billion, beating estimates contained in the 2013-14 Budget Act by a hefty $2.3 billion, or 27.7%.