CERF Blog
Dan Hamilton and Kjersti Framnes The California March unemployment rate increased to 12.6 percent from 12.5 percent in February. Since August of 2009 the unemployment rate has climbed 60 basis points, and there has not been any interim month of recovery. The unemployment rate would likely be even greater if not for net domestic out-migration.… Read more
Ventura California’s City Manager, Rick Cole, has had two recent pieces at newgeography.com, here and here, titled “The War for Jobs.” In these pieces, he outlines some important changes in California cities’ environment, and what Ventura is doing to attract or grow jobs, because, as he says, governments don’t create jobs. Rick’s right. Governments don’t… Read more
Below are two quotes from this article: “We’ve actually walked through this horrible recession with our economic base unscathed,” said Stephen Levy of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “The core of the California economy is still in place,” said Chris Thornberg of Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. With all due respect,… Read more
Dan Hamilton & Mary Hanley The January 27, 2010 DataQuick press release shows that California Notices of Default (NOD’s) fell from 111,689 in third quarter of 2009 to 84,568 in the fourth quarter of 2009. That is almost a 25 percent drop in NOD’s. NOD’s have been falling for three quarters now, which is a… Read more
The December California jobs report, out today, shows that the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate held steady from November at 12.4 percent. The year-on-year job declines subsided from November’s -4.2 percent to -3.9 percent in December. The annualized month-on-month job decline, which is very volatile, worsened from -1.5 percent in November to -3.2 percent in December. Almost two-thirds… Read more
Our governor wants a constitutional amendment to require that 10 percent of state revenues go to higher education. This sounds good, but it really is bad policy in several ways: One of our current problems is that there are so many spending mandates in California that our policy makers have very limited freedom to respond… Read more
The November California jobs report showed the unemployment rate subsiding a bit from 12.5 percent in October to 12.3 percent, the result of a declining workforce and not a result of new jobs. The year-on-year job growth comparison showed that non-farm job level was 4.2 percent less than last November, better than the 4.6 percent… Read more
Joel Kotkin sent me this link to a Union Tribune editorial. As Arnold would say, it’s fantastic. When asked about the possibility of suspending AB 32 during bad economic times, Arnold asserts that AB 32 is helping economic Growth. Here’s the money quote: “Your question is premised on an unproven assertion that implementation of AB… Read more
The October California jobs report was released November 20. The statewide unemployment rate increased from 12.3 in September to 12.5 percent in October. We are encouraged by the slight uptick in payroll job counts in October. However, there are still 4.6 percent fewer jobs than a year ago and 6.3 percent fewer than two years… Read more
A couple of months ago, on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, I had the opportunity to sit next to an impressive young woman from New Zealand, and we had the type of conversations that occur on long flights. New Zealand was too small for her, and opportunity was limited. So, right after… Read more
