As the labor union-backed Fight for $15 begins yet another nationwide strike on November 29, I have a simple message for the protest organizers and the reporters covering them: I told you so.
Menlo Park, California-based Lucid Motors will build an electric vehicle manufacturing facility in Casa Grande and has plans to build its luxury electric vehicles for first sale in 2018. . . “While all the markets wanted an automotive OEM facility, Arizona was the state that made us feel as if it were a partner in the process,” said Brian Barron, director of manufacturing for Lucid Motors, formerly Atieva. “We were impressed that Gov. Ducey made a trip to California to meet our team and was so accessible when we were in Arizona. This was one of the key deciding factors in choosing Casa Grande.”
According to a 2014 study by U.S. Common Sense, a fiscal watchdog group founded by Stanford graduates, this policy decision has left San Francisco with by far the highest unfunded liabilities on a per-person basis of any California local government of significant size.
California’s pension funds continue to face a fusillade of bad news, including new reports showing that retirement benefits consume 20 percent of Los Angeles’ general-fund budget. Put another way, one out of every five dollars the city spends goes to a retired city worker, a percentage that has quadrupled in the past 14 years. That’s an astounding number that is crowding out other public services. Things are even more troubling in San Jose, where pensions and retiree health care now consume nearly 28 percent of the budget.
The California Supreme Court decided Tuesday to review a ruling that would give state and local governments new authority to cut public employee pensions. . . But the court will not review further arguments in the case until a court of appeal resolves another pending pension dispute. That could take months.
Progressive politicians, dominant in California, talk incessantly about housing affordability, but blindly pursue policies that will make things even worse. It should not be surprising that the housing-cost adjusted poverty rate in California is the worst in union, underperforming even Mississippi. It should also not be surprising that Californians of every age group, including Millennials, are leaving state in larger numbers than they are being attracted.
Some 1.2 billion people do not have access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2016 report. About 2.7 billion still cook and heat their dwellings with wood, crop residues, and dung. In its main scenario for the trajectory of global energy consumption, the IEA projects that in 2040, half a billion people will still lack access to electricity and 1.8 billion will still be cooking and heating by burning biomass.
The highly respected Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau, or WCIRB, conducted a comprehensive study of a major overhaul of the system enacted by Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature four years ago. And it found that it did what it was supposed to do – cut costs, especially for medical care, to offset higher cash benefits.
The average age of cars and light trucks hit 11.6 years old, according to IHS Markit. The firm, which collects vehicle-registration data, estimates 264 million light vehicles are in operation. Both figures are up modestly from 2015, and represent records.
The latest new vehicle sales data from California New Car Dealers Association shows continued but slowing growth in California’s purchases of new cars and trucks. California consumers are now buying qualifying zero emission vehicles at an annual rate of 71,000, but will need to bump these purchases up to 175,000 a year in order to meet the state’s 2025 goal. Key findings from the data are below.
• Total light vehicle sales in 2016 Q3: 531,514. Essentially level with 2015 Q3 sales.
• Light vehicle market share, cars: 53.7%. Down from 58.8% in 2015 Q3.
• Light vehicle market share, light trucks: 46.3%. Up from 41.2% in 2015 Q3.
• California average price per gallon regular gasoline, 2016 Q3: $2.77. Down from $3.47 in 2015 Q3.
However, allowances offered by the state’s “compliance entities,” mostly utilities, and the Canadian province of Quebec took precedence, so their allotments were sold out while just 28.6 million of the 45.3 million tons in state-owned allowances up for sale moved.
The Labor Department rule doubles the salary level at which hourly workers must be paid extra for overtime pay, applying the requirement to anyone making up to $47,476 annually. U.S. District Court Judge Amos L. Mazzant III sided with Nevada and 20 other states in their bid to halt the rule, and he incorporated a similar legal challenge from a coalition of business groups including the Chamber of Commerce into his ruling.
Occupational licenses are “one of the most substantial barriers to opportunity in America today,” a new study by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) found. According to WILL’s estimates, licensing laws raise prices for consumers by $1.93 billion each year and results in roughly 31,000 fewer jobs. Over the past two decades, the number of license holders has jumped by 34 percent in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, the number of occupational licensing categories has soared by 84 percent.
The union has denounced the administration’s proposed wage increase of 12 percent over four years as inadequate because it fails to address what it contends are gender pay inequities in the state workforce. It also objects to the administration’s proposal that employees pay more for their health benefits.
Counting back, it’s believed that a complete transportation bill would have to be introduced no later than Friday to be legally considered in a lame-duck session – and perhaps by Wednesday, since legislative offices are supposed to be closed on Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving.