The LA TIMES recently ran another cheerleader article on how well CA is doing.
Two obvious problems with their facts:
- They use the timeframe from 2010 to 2018. The only reason the CA economy looks so good is that it fell so FAR in the first part of Great Recession, more than most other states.Here’s a simple math demonstration. If 100 people working dropped to 50 people, that would obviously be a 50% drop. Now, starting at 50 people, assume employment over time went back up to 100 people. What percent increase from 50 would that be?
- The TIMES touts that CA has record low unemployment. It’s true — for CALIFORNIA. But the paper leaves the headline reader thinking that our relatively low CA employment is the lowest rate in the nation.
Not hardly! Here’s recent figures: The CA unemployment rate (June 2019) is 4.2%. Yet we are still worse than all but 9 states. National unemployment rate is 3.8%. The CA unemployment rate is 15.6% higher than the average of the other 49 states.
More disturbing, as the LA TIMES notes deeper in its article than most read, the moribund CA workforce level has shown no growth for the 12 month period ending July 2019. But the Golden State workforce trend is not just stagnant — it’s heading down. Since February the CA workforce has actually SHRUNK every month — a contraction totaling 195,811 jobs. And by an ever-increasing number. In July alone it contracted by over 35,000 jobs.
Here’s an excerpt from a larger report on CA employment from the California Center for Jobs and the Economy
***Employment Growth Ranking—California Plummets to 43rd***