The new American Community Survey data indicates at least two significant narratives with respect to work access trends (commuting and working at home). One is transit work is becoming even more concentrated in only six of the nation’s 20,000 municipalities, the six transit legacy cities. The second is that working at home has passed transit […]
California’s unemployment rate remained at 4.2 percent in August. The state Employment Development Department says Friday the rate has held steady for five months. The department says California adds 44,800 nonfarm payroll jobs in August, for a total gain of more than 3 million jobs since economic expansion began in February 2010.
A new human-machine frontier within existing tasks: Companies expect a significant shift on the frontier between humans and machines when it comes to existing work tasks between 2018 and 2022. In 2018, an average of 71% of total task hours across the 12 industries covered in the report are performed by humans, compared to 29% […]
• California’s education system is moving in the right direction but is still in need of capacity building to support a decade of reforms. Over the past decade a multitude of reforms have resulted in some improvement. But, the system still must ensure that educators and other practitioners have the skills, information and materials they […]
The employment report for August was good — not great — but there were some strange numbers that President Trump should have someone keep an eye on. The puzzling figures have to do with seasonal adjustments — those yawn-inducing details that go into every government economic report. Bottom line: The Labor Department made major changes […]
Using calculations from think tank Third Way, Amy puts forth the CO2 emissions saved by each Tesla electric car to the CO2 savings of other sources of energy, as seen below. The conclusion is that “electric cars, and one company in that category (Tesla), are but one highly dependent piece of the puzzle in addressing […]
The California Chamber of Commerce did even better than usual in sidetracking the liberal measures that it placed on its notorious “job killer” list. Over the last two decades, ever since the annual list was first published, the chamber and allied business groups have rung up about a 90 percent kill ratio. But in 2018, […]
U.S. labor force participation by people in their prime working years fell substantially during the Great Recession, and it remains depressed despite some recovery since 2015. This appears to reflect longer-term developments, rather than lingering effects from the recession. One key factor is labor market polarization—manifested in the gradual disappearance of manual jobs—which helps predict […]
A new report about literacy came to an unsettling conclusion about students in Sacramento County schools: about three out of every five third-graders do not read at their grade level. The analysis also found that efforts to close the gap between high-performing schools and low-performing schools are falling short. April Javist, executive director of the […]
Unfortunately, nationwide academic tests tell us that California’s 6 million K-12 school students rank near the bottom in achievement vis-à-vis those in other states. In the National Assessment of Academic Progress (NAEP) testing, for example, California’s fourth-graders rank lower than those in 45 other states and in reading, lower than kids in 39 other states. […]
For the past year, Tesla watchers have obsessed over the Palo Alto automaker’s struggles to build its Model 3 electric sedan and CEO Elon Musk’s erratic behavior — most recently appearing to smoke pot on a podcast. Quietly, another element of Tesla’s business has been booming. Deployment of Tesla’s stationary batteries — designed to supply […]
Our analysis? California is in danger of pricing itself out for moderate wage earners, and particularly families. Taxes, poor educational performance, congestion and signs of slowing growth are no doubt contributing factors. But the big enchilada in California — by far the largest source of distortion in living costs — is housing. Over 90 percent […]
The numbers: American families paid more for gas, rent and airfare in August, but upward pressure on consumer inflation eased for the first time in almost a year. The consumer price index rose by 0.2% in August to mark the fifth straight increase. Economists polled by MarketWatch had predicted a 0.3% gain.
U.S. small business optimism surged to a record in August as the tax cuts and deregulation efforts of President Donald Trump and the Republican-led Congress led to more sales, hiring and investment, according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index jumped to 108.8 last month, the […]
American incomes rose and poverty declined for the third consecutive year in 2017, according to census figures released Wednesday that suggest more Americans are benefiting from the robust economy. The new data, which provide a broad look at U.S. economic well-being, show that median household income increased to $61,372 last year, up 1.8% when adjusted […]
