This report provides statistics on revenues, expenditures, financial assets and membership information for public employee retirement systems. Statistics are shown for retirement systems at the national, state and local government level. This publication presents data on public pension systems based on information collected from the 2011 Annual Survey of Public Pensions: State- and Locally-Administered Defined Benefit Data.
The insurance industry has provided over 210,00 jobs in 2010 and provided a payroll that totaled $14.9 billion, just in California!
Anyone interested in exploring economic, demographic and other data about California and its communities – yours truly, for example – has had to work at it because there’s been no central repository. One must mine data from federal agencies such as the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from state agencies such as the Employment Development Department, the Department of Education or the Department of Finance, or from private and academic data banks.
As the real estate market conƟnues to improve, or, more specifically, as homes conƟnue to appreciate, homeowners with underwater mortgages will reap the benefits. However, naƟonal policies stemming from the federal Dodd-Frank Act may temper growth as the changing standards for what defines a convenƟonal mortgage will make qualifying more difficult. These standards may serve a greater purpose in the long term, but their short-term effects are currently hurƟng potenƟal homebuyers.
Starting in the 1970s California’s residential electricity consumption per capita stopped increasing, while other states’ electricity use continued to grow steadily. Similar patterns can be seen in non-electric energy, industry, and transportation. What accounts for California’s apparent energy savings?
With an educated and highly skilled workforce, a comprehensive higher education system with distinguished research institutions, and access to public and private funding in the form of research grants and venture capital, California has been and continues to be in a unique position to lead the nation in biotechnology.
. . . three tailwinds that typically help drive strong recoveries—investment in housing, consumer confidence, and discretionary fiscal policy—have been absent or turned into headwinds this time.
. . . examines the growing cost to the state of the EZ tax breaks, looks at who receives these breaks, and discusses current proposals to reform the EZ Program, including those contained in Governor Brown’s May Revision of his proposed 2013-14 budget.
A look at California’s property tax 35 years after passage of Proposition 13.
. . . presents the employment rates of California women over time; their current employment rate according to age group, highest degree attained, and race/ethnic category; and their occupational category with median personal income.
In January, Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote a piece dealing with the movement of a manufacturing firm out of California. He used the loss of the firm to lament the difficulties faced by the state’s manufacturers and the fact California lacks any industrial development policy. In March, the paper’s Sacramento columnist, George Skelton, wrote an article citing the difficulties being created for the state by misuse of the CEQA process. Key observers thus appear to be starting to understand that our state government, with Democrats now controlling every constitutional office and veto proof majorities in both houses, has done little to worry about California’s prosperity and the huge portion of its residents with high school or less educations. As the Chief Economist of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, I have had to worry about these facts as they directly affect the region about which we are concerned.
. . . new economic study produced by leading academic economists that examines the role that development of oil from California’s Monterey Shale Formation can play in the future economic well-being of the state of California.. . . documenting the potential impact of development of the Monterey Shale on job creation, economic activity, personal incomes, and government tax revenues over the next 15 years.
State and county level data on migration drawn from federal income tax return filings. Currently available 1990 to 2010.
. . . considers the changes in the State’s employment structure over the past two decade, looking at the growth and contractions in its core industries. This report then analyzes some of the factors that have led to these employment changes, in particular those factors affected by government policies.
Data tool for accessing Bureau of the Census data from different series