A report from the California Business Roundtable says the state’s working poor are finding it harder than ever to move up the economic ladder toward the middle class. The roundtable’s president, Robert Lapsley, says the cost of living is the biggest barrier to upward mobility in the state. Lapsley says that’s in addition to cumbersome […]
The expanding gig economy in California is often praised for giving workers flexibility and independence. Be your own boss, set your own schedule, companies tout, and these companies would like us to think that drivers, cleaners and personal shoppers actually prefer the gig economy to traditional employment. The rosy spin ignores the reality for California’s […]
The state Department of Finance reported this month that California, which has a stubborn and growing shortage of housing, added just 77,000 houses, apartments and condos in 2018. Actually, private and public housing developers drew permits for well over 100,000 units, and about that many were constructed. But a whopping 23,700 existing homes were burned […]
New-home sales in the U.S. declined in April, posting the largest monthly drop since the end of last year, but there are signs the market for new homes is brightening. Purchases of newly built single-family homes—a relatively narrow slice of all U.S. home sales—declined 6.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 673,000 in April, […]
Southern California’s best year for housing creation since the Great Recession left the region trailing the national growth pace and a local hiring spree. Fresh Census Bureau statistics detail the slow pace of new housing added to the region. The number of housing units — owned or rented — in the four counties covered by […]
The California Community Colleges Board of Governors intends to extend the contract of the system’s chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley through 2023, the board said Tuesday. Oakley’s four-year contract was due to end in December 2020, but the board has decided to give him another four-year contract beginning in December of this year. “Chancellor Oakley has […]
Facing intense pressure to eliminate fire risks, PG&E said Wednesday night it plans to rebuild the electric distribution system in devastated Paradise with underground power lines. The utility, which has been blamed by California investigators for causing the Camp Fire, said the underground lines will make Paradise’s system safer. “As part of our commitment to […]
At first glance, all seems serene on a spring morning at the research-and-development campus of SK Innovation, one of Korea’s biggest industrial conglomerates. The campus sits in Daejeon, a tidy, planned city an hour’s high-speed-train ride south of Seoul that the national government has built up as a technology hub. Dotting SK’s rolling acres are […]
Many American households remain financially fragile and uncertain about their retirement prospects despite a booming job market that is lifting wages, according to a Federal Reserve survey released Thursday. One-quarter of working individuals say they have no retirement savings at all, the survey said, and 44% worry that their saving isn’t on track. Among younger […]
Aiming to short-circuit an idea that has long captured the imagination, if not yet the votes, of legislators, a study backed by California Chamber of Commerce has found that adopting a business service tax—i.e., a tax on lawyers, accountants and consultants—would hurt the economy and put the state at a competitive disadvantage. The 56-page report […]
Earlier this year, Democrats in the state Capitol introduced several measures intended to limit Californians’ consumption of soda, arguing that rotting teeth and rising diabetes presented a public health crisis demanding action akin to regulations on cigarettes. They proposed taxing soda, banning Big Gulps, prohibiting in-store discounts on soft drinks, banishing them from the front […]
A report from the California Business Roundtable says the state’s working poor are finding it harder than ever to move up the economic ladder toward the middle class. The roundtable’s president, Robert Lapsley, says the cost of living is the biggest barrier to upward mobility in the state. Lapsley says that’s in addition to cumbersome and confusing […]
On June 4, voters in the Los Angeles Unified School District will vote on Measure EE, a proposal to enact a special property tax to fund local schools. Approval of the measure would authorize a $0.16-per-square foot parcel tax for twelve years to fund educational improvements, instruction, and programs. School district officials have estimated that […]
As 2018 was winding down, one of California’s leading newspapers suggested, via a front-page, banner-headlined article, that the drought that had plagued the state for much of this decade may be returning. Just weeks later, that same newspaper was reporting that record-level midwinter storms were choking mountain passes with snow, rapidly filling reservoirs and causing […]
Many naive policymakers discuss homelessness in purely economic terms, perpetrating a distracting myth. Sure, people become homeless for diverse reasons. One might be a LGBT youth, kicked out by parents. Another might be a spouse fleeing an abusive relationship. Those are prime candidates for conventional outreach and solutions: Make them aware of shelters and house […]