Highlights for policy makers: Unemployment Rate Remains at 5.5%; Total Employment Up 90,900 Labor Force Participation Rate Improves to 62.8% State Employment Growth Rankings Nonfarm Jobs Increase 31,200 Four Industries below 2007 Pre-Recession Job Levels Two-Tier Economy Persists Seven California MSAs in the 10 Worst Unemployment Rates Nationally California in Full Employment? 3rd Quarter Housing Permits Down 1% 3rd Quarter Housing Prices 60.6% Above US Average
What is happening in Dallas is an extreme example of what’s happening in many other places around the country. Elected officials promised workers solid pensions years ago, on the basis of wishful thinking rather than realistic expectations. Dallas’s troubles have become more urgent because its plan rules let some retirees take big withdrawals.
California’s gubernatorial transitions have included a less-than-stellar tradition in recent decades – outgoing governors leaving budget deficits to successors. . . So Brown’s fix is temporary, rather than permanent. And with so many variables, the next governor could easily be back in the soup.
The California State Teachers Retirement System board, for example, was told that in 1971 there were were six active workers in the system for every retiree. Today CalSTRS only has 1.5 active workers for every retiree, similar to the CalPERS ratio.
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.
As housing prices continue to rise in California, a significant number of our residents are being denied access to the American dream of homeownership. Today, only about one-third of our fellow citizens can afford to buy a median-priced home in the Golden State, down from a peak of 56 percent just four years ago.
As Bay Area cities scramble to find housing solutions to prevent displacement, a new report warns that the region is resegregating by race and class.
Anyone living in California who’s paying attention knows what venture capitalist Thiel meant. While a handful of Silicon Valley social media entrepreneurs have amassed almost indescribable wealth, and fundamentally transformed how humanity communicates, investment in boring things like roads, bridges, tunnels, ports, aqueducts, reservoirs and railroads – the list is endless – has stagnated. Especially in California. Flying cars? Forget about it. Go tweet.
The rule requires that up to 25% of units in rental properties and up to 40% in for-sale projects meet affordability guidelines. Alternatively, developers can pay a fee to the city. . . Developers must pay construction wages on par with those required for public-works projects, hire 30% of the workforce from within city limits, set aside 10% of jobs for certain disadvantaged workers living within 5 miles of the project and ensure 60% of workers have experience on par with graduates of a union apprenticeship program.
“California generally leads in both overcrowding and severe overcrowding. The state’s share of overcrowded households in the nation is 27 percent, while the state has 30 percent of severely overcrowded households, almost 3 times its 11 percent share of households. Only Hawaii has a higher severe overcrowding rate than California, at 3.8 percent of households California’s severe overcrowding rate is 2.9 percent. By contrast, average for the United States is a much lower 1.1 percent.”
A report from the U.S. Census Bureau says millennials are leaving Los Angeles at one of the highest rates in the country, LA Weekly reports. The analysis found that residents between the ages of 18 and 35 decreased by 7.4 percent over the last 10 years, a decrease of 780,000 people, making it the third-worst city for millennial population loss.
A new report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City, Mo., nonprofit, tracks the number, survival and density of small businesses (those with fewer than 50 employees) across the U.S. While small companies are making it past their fifth year at a near-record rate, business ownership and firm growth remain historically low, possible reflections of declining dynamism across the U.S. economy.
Pension Tracker (http:pensiontracker.org), a Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) project, estimates total United States public pension debt (a.k.a. unfunded liabilities) in June 2015 at $5.599 trillion, a 16 percent increase over 2014. . . California now has the second highest Market Pension Debt per household at $92,478, a 19.4 percent rise over 2014.
The laborers have been working without a contract for four years, union officials say. That’s why they have been asking for back pay in their negotiations with UCLA. They have asked for 20.39% in retroactive back pay and annual wage increases of 17.39%, 5% and 4%.
Aecom has halted construction on Faraday Future’s Las Vegas electric car factory after the Chinese-backed firm reportedly missed several payments for the project.