“If the parent screwed up things, and if the principal’s no good, if the principal can’t lead, if the superintendent isn’t very good, if the local school board isn’t so good, what makes you think that the Legislature can fix it,” Brown told the invitation-only audience.
Exactly how the state’s ambitious goal will be achieved is unclear, and agreement on the price tag is elusive. What is certain is that making homes and other buildings use energy more efficiently will cost money up front, in a state that has some of the country’s most expensive real estate and is struggling to create more affordable housing.
Having witnessed teaching “fads” since the 1950s and running charter schools as Oakland mayor, Gov. Jerry Brown doesn’t expect his own key education policy — called the Local Control Funding Formula — to close the academic performance gap between African Americans and Latinos and other student groups
In 2015, there was approximately 4.4 million people in the CalFresh program, receiving more than $7 billion in benefits annually. That’s compared to 2005, when there were about 2 million Californians receiving more than $2 billion in annual benefits.
In California’s 68 largest cities, violent crime jumped 11 percent in the first six months of 2015 compared to the same period in 2014. Among major U.S. cities, three California cities saw the largest increase in property crime in the country.
Major renovations on existing homes will have to be undertaken with energy efficiency in mind, using products and systems that meet an updated state building code. California’s code is already among the strictest in the nation. . . New homes will also be required to meet higher energy standards. By 2020, each home built in California should produce as much power as it consumes. At least one builder estimates that advanced energy systems will add $50,000 to the cost of a new, super-efficient home. What will that mean in a state where low-cost housing is in short supply?
According to Adibi, worker training, education and opportunity for advancement is the “fundamental issue,” so that the minimum wage is more “transitory.” . . . “The public policy should address the core policy here rather than put a band-aid on by increasing the minimum wage,” Adibi said.
The increased pension payment is projected to consume about 38 percent of growth in the education budget between now and 2019. In other words, school districts will pay $3.1 billion more to the pension system in 2019-20 than they do today while the state’s minimum school funding guarantee, called Proposition 98, is projected to be about $8.3 billion higher in that same year.
School spending is also projected to go up whether or not the Proposition 30 taxes are extended. The Legislative Analyst’s Office, the state’s nonpartisan budget analyst, projects the minimum funding guarantee for public schools and community colleges is projected grow to $77.5 billion in 2019.
If motorists do pay more in taxes and fees, they may be disappointed to hear that the money will do little to improve their biggest complaint about roads — traffic. The money under discussion is primarily to keep roads, bridges and related infrastructure like culverts from falling apart, not relieve traffic.
The inefficiency of the minimum wage stems directly from who are working minimum wage jobs in California. First, based on the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, in 2014, almost one-third of hourly workers making $9 per hour live in households with family income above the federal poverty line; moreover, 79 percent were ages 25 or younger (i.e. individuals who are just entering the labor force). And lastly, 73 percent of Californian hourly workers making $9 per hour (or less) didn’t have a college degree, suggesting a majority of minimum wage workers are, in fact, lower skilled.
As executive director of BANANAS, an Oakland-based nonprofit that connects families with childcare providers, he has seen how Oakland’s minimum wage hike has impacted workers who benefit from a higher wage, while creating new challenges for families facing more expensive or reduced access to child care. . . “Their profit margins are so thin to begin with, so they have to lay off those providers. So those are working people who are out of jobs. Then what happens is they have to reduce their services to families because license requirements (say) that if you don’t have a certain number of people in the center or the family childcare home, you have to reduce the number of families you serve. So families have lost their child care.”
“It doesn’t work,” said Chris Thornberg, a founding partner of Beacon Economics. “Does a higher minimum wage reduce poverty? No. Does it reduce homelessness? No. Does it get more at-risk inner-city youth to work? No. So why are we doing it? We have to find a different plan.”
“A minimum-wage job has always been the role of an entry-level position into the workforce,” Lapsley said. “(Those jobs are) to help get people initially trained and then move into a … different job so that they have a long-term future.”
After the minimum wage ordinance was approved, LoGuercio invested in a $150,000 industrial dishwasher he had been eyeing to save on utility costs. The machine will also allow him to stop paying six to eight people who earn $10 to $11 an hour washing dishes. LoGuercio expects to recoup his costs in nine months, and save a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year going forward.