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The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) announced in October, “In 2015 California’s farms and ranches received approximately $47 billion for their output. This represents a decrease of nearly 17 percent compared to 2014.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service said prior-year comparable receipts were $56.6 billion. That’s a revenue loss of $9.6 billion in a single year. . . It’s estimated that the average California farmer now is required to pay and be compliant with nearly 80 local, state, and federal regulatory agencies in order to grow food, fiber, and fuel for our nation’s citizens and the world.

Highlights for policy makers: Unemployment Rate Remains at 5.5%; Total Employment Up 108,600 Labor Force Participation Rate Improves to 62.6% State Employment Growth Rankings Nonfarm Jobs Increase 30,000 Six Industries below 2007 Pre-Recession Job Levels Two-Tier Economy Persists Seven California MSAs in the 10 Worst Unemployment Rates Nationally Average Wage and Compensation Growth in 2015

A sharp pullback in spending by cities and states on infrastructure—from highways to sewage systems to police stations—is weighing on U.S. economic growth. . . The decline depressed gross domestic product growth this spring and was on track to weigh on growth again in the third quarter.

Yet California’s public-pension problem is what really drives many of these campaigns. State and local pensions are deeply in debt because of the generous giveaways elected officials have offered government workers. While the money for the taxes isn’t directly dedicated for pensions, new tax revenue can free up funds to cover local governments’ obligations to the state retirement system.

In a ruling that has ramifications for land-use and water policy across the United States and California, a federal appeals court ruled Monday that scientists can draw on long-range climate projections to determine whether a species should be listed as threatened.

Faraday hasn’t paid $21 million due in September, with bills totaling an additional $25 million due for October and $12 million for November, according to Aecom, a multinational engineering firm. The Los Angeles company is the prime contractor for Faraday’s car factory under construction in North Las Vegas, which, if completed, is expected to turn out 150,000 cars annually.

California will have to build about 3.5 million homes over the next eight years, more than triple its current pace of construction, simply to keep up with expected population growth and hold down housing costs to affordable levels. But how could the state actually do it?

It’s often said that the U.S. has recovered more strongly from the last recession than most other developed nations. Data on jobs, though, suggest that’s not quite true. . . As of June, the G-7 as a whole had recovered almost completely, while the U.S. was only 60 percent back from its lowest point . . .

Premiums will go up sharply next year under President Obama’s healthcare law, and many consumers will be down to just one insurer, the administration confirmed Monday. . . Before taxpayer-provided subsidies, premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase an average of 25% across the 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s plan to reform the city’s three pension plans has received the backing from the Houston Police Department , Houston Fire Department and the Houston Municipal Employees, Turner said Monday. . . The plan is designed to eliminate $5.6 billion in unfunded pension liability within 30 years, but would also reduce benefits avoiding more than $2.5 billion in future costs, and include the issuance of at least $1 billion in bonds.

As cities all over the state have raised their minimum wages in recent years, labor advocates in the Bay Area are turning to what they see as another piece of the puzzle for improving workers’ lives: scheduling.

“Tapping methane produced from decaying garbage in landfills to generate electricity was among California’s earliest experiments in renewable energy. But in order to comply with a new regional rule to cut another pollutant — the one that often leaves Southern California blanketed in a layer of smog — a Riverside County landfill has decided to shut down its generators and will simply flare the methane, sending tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”

The federal government subsidizes the fossil-fuel industry to the tune of about $3 to $5 billion dollars per year (the exact amount depends on whose numbers you believe). . . According to the apolitical U.S. Energy Information Agency, the federal government spends about $3.5 billion per year subsidizing the coal, petroleum and natural gas industries. By contrast, the Feds dole out about $15 billion every year in subsidies to the renewable energy industry (mainly to support new wind and solar projects) and $20 billion per year for agricultural subsidies and insurance.

A surprising reason dissident actuaries advocate using a much lower earnings forecast for public pension investment funds is “intergenerational equity,” ensuring that the pensions of government workers are paid by the generation that receives their services.

Generally, a closely aligned relationship between trends in owner occupied and rented housing costs would be expected . This was certainly true until 1970 (Note 1).  In 1949 there was a 135 percent difference between the lowest median household value and the highest in the major metropolitan areas (Note 2). There was a similar 114 percent difference between the lowest gross rent and the highest (Figure 1). The house value variation was 18 percent higher than the rent variation. . . The close relationship between the variations in house value and rent was substantially broken in more recent decades. The 2015 American Community Survey shows that the variation among the major metropolitan areas in median house values is now a staggering 509 percent. The range between the least expensive and most expensive rental markets is a much smaller 158 percent (Figure 3). The difference in the variations between house value and rents across the nation rose to 222 percent, nearly nine times the 1969 figure.