News

Local unemployment is down. The Sacramento economy is slowly growing. But Sacramento’s poorest residents are reaping few of the rewards.

One of the games that politicians and interest groups play is called “economic impact.”

Even as new filmmaking centers help spread Hollywood’s wealth around the world, the boost to local economies comes at a personal cost to the specialists who must follow the work.

Nonetheless, other numbers paint a mixed picture for a holiday spending season that began with a disappointing Black Friday and later focused on hopes that retail momentum would rise with last-minute spending.

Faced with a dearth of developable land, home builders across Southern California are cramming more houses into less space. Many are dispensing with the single-family homes that have defined the region’s development for half a century (Exhibit A: “The Brady Bunch”). In their place they are building somewhat smaller structures in the form of townhouses or pairs of homes that share one wall.

For more than a year, Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration has been describing his plan to build two massive water tunnels through the Delta as a $25 billion project.

Congress went home for the holidays without approving a federally funded extension of jobless benefits for about 1.3 million Americans who have been out of work six months or longer.

Real GDP rose 3.6 percent after rising 2.5 percent in the second quarter. Business investment and state and local government spending picked up, and imports slowed. Consumer spending slowed.

State personal income growth slowed slightly to 1.1 percent in the third quarter of 2013, from 1.2 percent in the second quarter, according to estimates released today by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Growth slowed in 25 states, accelerated in 22, and was unchanged in 3 states and the District of Columbia. Growth across states ranged from 0.4 percent in New Mexico to 1.9 percent in Mississippi. The national price index for personal consumption expenditures increased 0.5 percent in the third quarter after remaining unchanged in the second quarter.

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.  This ACS report will be produced annually to facilitate the examination of changes in the state over time.  

California grew by 332,000 people between July 1, 2012 and July 1, 2013 to total more than 38.2 million, according to official population estimates released today by the Department of Finance. The growth rate of 0.9 percent and the 332,000 numeric gain are the highest for California since the pre-recession year of 2003-04.

Real gross domestic product–the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States–increased at an annual rate of 4.1 percent in the third quarter of 2013 (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter), according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 2.5 percent.

California’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 8.5 percent in November, down 0.2 percentage point in October, and down 1.4 percentage points from 1 year ago. In comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate was 7.0 percent in November, down 0.3 percentage point from October, and down 0.8 percentage point from 1 year ago.

In California there were 14,748,200 jobs in total non-farm industries in November, a gain of 44,300 jobs from last month. This followed a revised 30,100-job gain in October and a 2,900-job loss in September.

Within non-farm industries, 7 sectors saw month-over job gains; 4 sectors saw a month-over job decline.

In addition to these characteristics, more than 40 social, economic and housing topics are now available through the American Community Survey statistics for all communities in the nation, regardless of size, down to the block group level. For example, health insurance coverage statistics are now available for the first time at the neighborhood level.

Among employers surveyed in the West, 18 percent plan to add staff, while 8 percent anticipate a decline in payrolls, resulting in a Net Employment Outlook of +10% for Quarter 1 2014. According to seasonally adjusted survey results, employers in the West anticipate a relatively stable hiring pace compared to Quarter 4 2013 and one year ago at this time.