A new future for the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was laid out for public review Monday in 34,000 sprawling pages of analysis associated with two giant water-diversion tunnels proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown. The question now for the public and policy makers: Is this the future they want?
California’s unemployment rate has dropped to 8.7 percent over the past two months, while Sacramento unemployment has declined to levels not seen in five years, according to figures released today.
California’s budget is on track for multibillion dollar surpluses in the coming years, the Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal analyst said Wednesday in an upbeat assessment of the state’s fiscal picture.
By the U-6 measure, California’s employment distress rate is 18.3 percent for the 12 months ending June 30, according to a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. California’s rate is second only to Nevada’s 19 percent and four percentage points higher than the national rate of 14.3 percent.
Gov. Jerry Brown, whose pronouncements of California’s economic recovery have been criticized by Republicans who point out the state’s high poverty rate, said in a radio interview Wednesday that poverty and the large number of people looking for work are “really the flip side of California’s incredible attractiveness and prosperity.”
Shinmei Co. Ltd., one of Japan’s largest rice millers and distributors, today formally announced that it will build a $10 million, 28,000-square-foot U.S. headquarters and production plant on six acres in West Sacramento’s Southport Business Park.
California export trade figures for August, delayed 16 days due to the federal government shutdown, showed a significant late-summer surge.
A new 16-state study of workers’ compensation systems, covering 60 percent of the nation’s workers, says it’s too early to tell what the real-world effects of SB 863 will be, specifically whether its cost-saving provisions will offset the costs of increased cash payments, as its sponsors promised.
California ranked 48th out 50 states in the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation’s 2014 State Business Tax Climate Index.
These 12 heavyweights are among 75 corporations and trade groups that have weighed in on one piece of legislation pending in the U.S. Senate. At least in part, the bill is intended to thwart California’s latest foray into the regulation of interstate commerce.
A Texas-based conservative think tank, the National Center for Policy Analysis, has entered the debate by launching an interactive website that allows users to calculate the tax effects of moving from one state to another.
“The Census Bureau reported recently that 15 percent of California’s 38 million residents were living in poverty last year, the 20th highest rate in the nation.
However, an experimental Census Bureau method of gauging poverty, which includes a cost-of-living factor, puts California’s rate at more than 23 percent, the nation’s highest.”
“Gov. Jerry Brown has repeatedly pledged to tear down what he calls California’s “”wall of debt.””
But Brown’s definition of that debt wall – about $30 billion in accumulated deficits from recent state budgets – is less than 10 percent of the debt that state and local governments have amassed, according to a new compilation by the California Taxpayers Association, if one includes unfunded liabilities for public employee pensions.
Cal-Tax researchers counted $443 billion in state and local debts, roughly two-thirds of it carried by the state and the other third by local agencies. That’s the equivalent of a fifth of the state’s annual economic output and amounts to $11,600 for each of California’s 38 million residents. “
The Employment Development Department said today that statewide unemployment rose to 8.9 percent in August, up two-tenths of a point. But statewide payrolls grew by 29,100 – the second highest payroll growth in the nation.
Citing the healthier housing market, improved state budget situation and the prospect of a new downtown NBA arena, UOP economist Jeff Michael said Thursday that Sacramento’s job market will pick up steam in 2014 and 2015.