California sets new low unemployment record in July

That job gain is despite job postings declining in the state and sales of single-family homes — a major driver of California's economy — slowing 14.4% in July compared to June and down 31.1% from a year ago,

Odd..it is almost as if large amounts of stimulus fueled private equity capital are flowing into the state and this news in no way indicates broad based prosperity.

“I think the labor force will go up in the future because people need to earn extra income to beat inflation," he said. “We are already seeing so-called gig employment rising because some people are holding two or three jobs.

Sounds like a booming economy. Welcome to the Precariat.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/11/precariat-global-class-rise-of-populism/

Odd..it is almost as if large amounts of stimulus fueled private equity capital are flowing into the state and this news in no way indicates broad based prosperity.

Of all the risk capital invested in the US on any given year, about half is invested in California with around 35-36 of the national total going just to the Bay Area. That is not stimulus driven. This has been true for decades. Because California is so open to new innovative ideas and is a place where almost nothing is too far out, entrepreneurs who might find resistance to their ideas in more conservative states are welcomed warmly in California. It is a place where novel ideas other may laugh at can come to fruition and fortunes are made. And obtw, California has a hard working workforce. It is not all a day at the beach. People work hard to make things happen and that is why the state is so wealthy.

Good, but that’s still not stopping people from leaving the State. So as more affluent people move in to areas that provide them the best safety that money can buy, the same goes for the people that come from old money and live in safe affluent communities, why would they care about the rest of the State that has fallen to rising crime, theft, taxes and high cost of living and other radical progressive policies that have made it for millions unlivable? That’s the other flip side of the coin that people in that State have to deal with.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-29/california-exodus-continues-l-a-san-francisco-lead-the-way

I don't think that's the barometer we should be reflecting upon how about underemployment stats that's more accurate.

If they included the homeless folks, the numbers in California would not look so good.

rising crime, theft, taxes and high cost of living and other radical progressive policies that have made it for millions unlivable?

Out of all the items you listed, only higher taxes on the rich and corporations are a "radical progressive policy".

You do like using those words though.

Work is done on the roof of a building under construction in Sacramento, Calif.,

Construction work is not really a good example of the unemployment rate as many workers are non-citizens.

Construction work is not really a good example of the unemployment rate as many workers are non-citizens.

Exactly.

Bass4,yes it hard work,but house would never be built,lots of construction company exploit Hispanic Laborers,I saw a Mexican crew build a brick house in one month

yes it hard work,but house would never be built,lots of construction company exploit Hispanic Laborers,I saw a Mexican crew build a brick house in one month

That is only one sector of the job force and that is those are filling up fast and with the daily influx of illegals with low skills, the labor force will be at its full capacity then what? These people are limited to a certain job segment, it doesn't help the growing homelessness or the exodus.

I love how they report this, the “UnEmployment” is due to NOT HAVING any Benefits to APPLY for. That’s why it APPEARS more people are working, tricky, huh? But it sounds GREAT. If you don’t WORK a certain amount of weeks / months, and then loose your job, you have NOTHING to apply for.

Gov. Gavin Newsom would be a great president!

added low end paid jobs...its better to say it this way...

Gov. Gavin Newsom would be a great president!

For California being governor is as far as it goes for him.

@Bass

You did tell us Trump was the leader of a lunatic fringe who would fizzle out and Biden would never become president.

I think I might have a look at Newsom’s odds to become president…

I think I might have a look at Newsom’s odds to become president…

Not good at all.

Newsom 14/1. Not too generous.

Interesting.

@Bass

So to be clear, you are clearly stating Newsom will never become president?

I’m honestly thinking of having a flutter.

If life is so great, why are so many fleeing California?

So to be clear, you are clearly stating Newsom will never become president? 

Yes

I’m honestly thinking of having a flutter.

Ok.

Cheers, Bass.

I’ll factor that in to my decision.

Much appreciated.

I live in South Cal. I have never seen so many "help wanted" signs on businesses as I see these days. Not far away a warehouse is advertising $20/hour, with a $1,500 signing bonus.

My take on the population decline in California? The latest census was done during the pandemic, when millions of illegal workers went back home due to Covid. The gab with my neighbors, most of whom vote Republican, is that the more people who leave the state, the better. It just makes it less crowded for the rest of us, who love living here. Interestingly, though most of my neighbors and I do not vote the same, we get along just fine.

As for whether or not Newsom has further ambitions, why should I care? I would point out that during the recent recall election forced on the state by disgruntled right-wingers, Newsom was re-elected by an almost 2 to 1 majority.

 I would point out that during the recent recall election forced on the state by disgruntled right-wingers, Newsom was re-elected by an almost 2 to 1 majority.

True, but that does not translate into a nationwide consensus that the majority of Americans would vote for him. With the exception of the West and East Coast, the majority of Americans don't envy or wish to be like California, that is why so many of the middle class are leaving in droves.

Considering that people are moving out of that disaster of a state in droves you have to wonder where all the new workers are coming from! For all you doubters here is a simple test; call around to the U-Haul truck rental places throughout California and try to rent a large moving truck. None are available because so many people are leaving the state and renting them to not return. Plenty of rental trucks in Florida and Texas !!

Interesting, people say so many are leaving California. Yet they seem to have a net number of people moving there and huge tourist number's, can't be that bad of a place to live.

@Bass would have you believe homes are built in California by low skilled workers. He has never watched homes built to California's strict seismic standards being built in California. It is not work for workers lacking skills. There are detailed specifications to be followed right down to the materials, length and placement of fasteners, use of metal bracing over joints, and a myriad other details that have to be done right for the house to pass inspection. It takes training and skill to do this work. Commercial construction is even more demanding.

Interesting, people say so many are leaving California. Yet they seem to have a net number of people moving there and huge tourist number's, can't be that bad of a place to live.

The truth is in the state's population data. I have been hearing this drumbeat about everyone is leaving California for over 20 years, yet the population kept growing year after year. The state experienced small (0.71%) population declines in 2021 and 2022 attributable to reduced foreign immigration, falling total fertility rate, both of which mirror national trends, and Covid-19 deaths. Interestingly the largest single source of in-migration to California is the state of New York. Net foreign migration to California in 2021 was only 27,000, compared to 55,000 Covid-19 deaths. High housing costs are the main drawback to moving to California, but that is driven in part by the high demand for housing which in turn is driven by the attractiveness of living in California and the high salaries paid to tech workers.

California is one of those love-to-hate states. Depending on where you live, it can be either end of the spectrum.

There are several problems in California that need to be addressed: Homelessness, affordable housing (which might be linked to homelessness), and I have to say property taxes are (at least to me anyway) very high.

However, it still serves as the engine of ideas and industry in a post-industrial knowledge economy and some of the problems it is facing are a function of supply and demand as so many people want to live there.

Ever notice that when young adults leave dead-end existences in Red state back waters for better economic prospects or better treatment in the social environment, they go to California and not Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia (outside of Atlanta which is a magnate for young educated Black Americans) or my home state of Kansas (Flat as a pancake, Oven-hot in summer, "At least it's not N. Dakota, eh?" cold in winter and the cult of Koch industries in 3/4 of the state - What's not to love?)? Why is that? Could be opportunity. Could be nobody social inclusiveness. Point is, nobody dreams of a better life in the vast majority of Red State America. It just doesn't really happen.

California is a state with issues, like almost every other state in the Union - but the idea that it's an over-run hell hole and dystopian nightmare are the fever dreams of a cult that really hates to see a progressive state serving as a social and economic engine of growth.

so Skidrow is thing of past than...?

and I have to say property taxes are (at least to me anyway) very high.

The value of your property is probably high. Property taxes in California as a proportion of market value are the lowest in the nation. Property is taxed at 1% of assessed value. However due to Proposition 13 way back in 1978, assessed value may rise no more than 2% per year even as the property's market value increases at double digit percentages. The longer you own the better it is. The net effect is that overall property in California is taxed at 0.7% of market value, the lowest rate in the nation.

For comparison a friend of mine just moved to Texas and bought a house of roughly the same market value as mine. His tax rate is 2.5% of market value and there is no cap on annual increases. If his property increases in value 10%, so will his taxes. But even just buying in, his Texas property tax bill is a bit larger than my combined California income and property tax bills.

The moral of the story is every state manages to take about the same percentage of their resident's income. The menu of taxes varies by state, Florida even imposes a state sales tax on rents, but they all take about the same amount of your income.

can't be that bad of a place to live.

It's a place where innovative people can pursue a dream and nobody laughs at you for dreaming. Heck people clap! It's a land of second chances. People by and large are accepting. You find most Californians for example don't buy in to all the vitriol the right spouts off about immigrants because so many of us are immigrants. They are our neighbors, our co-workers, own the businesses we patronize, own the businesses we work for, fix our cars and do work on our homes. They are often our own family. It is not a place tied to the past. Some will complain that the past is too easily forgotten but it is a place where people are looking forward. People come here to get away from a bad past and build something better. They don't come here to repeat what they fled from. It's not a walk in the park, a day at the beach. As Steely Dan sang, "in the land of milk and honey you must put them on the table" but the rewards are there and in some ways uniquely so. It's a special place for me.

Unemployment records are very different from the actual percentages as they do not account for those who have “dropped off the map” due to loss of benefits, and a wide variety of other reasons..

GN for Prez!!!! Unemployment is the least of the nation's problems but he can do a similarly great job fixing crime, homelessness, overregulation, immigration, institutional racism and sexism, white supremacy and the myriad other issues that California has solved.

Dessert,

Your point is taken. Full Disclosure: I am not a property owner in CA. I previously owned property in my home state of KS., so I am talking from the point of view of an outside observer.

I accept your premise that the taxes could be higher do to the higher underlying value of the property.

I also accept your point about Proposition 13.

My 2 counterpoints would be that due to the lack of housing (as well as other factors) the value of the underlying property is, in my humble opinion, over-valued.

For example, there was a sample offering in San Diego this weekend on the real estate section of The NY Times (Yes, this is actually the dorky kind of thing I do on the weekend) for a “Craftsman Bungalow” only slightly larger than my Tokyo condo on 0.1 acre for $875k.

An equivalent home in suburban KS MIGHT tip the scales at 120k. I know it’s KS, but I’m hard pressed to think that there is anything about CA that makes the property inherently 7.3 times more valuable.

My other point being my understanding is that while existing owners are protected from big bumps in property taxes due to Proposition 13, the sale of the property would reset the property and it would be marked to market in its tax appraisal.

These were my points as an outsider and why one might be hesitant to move to CA.

But I take your point for existing Property owners as well as the overall merits of CA in economic and social creation.

Gavin “ Nuisance” Newsom was a pariah on the city of San Francisco as mayor by ignoring the rule of law, again as state attorney general when he refused to enforce laws he personally did not like, and the high crime, open daytime looting, sidewalk human excrement, etc. continues to demonstrate that his tenure has damaged the California economy, social systems, education programs, and health care quality.

Lowering unemployment is one uptick on his disastrous policies, but, as Californians, we need a governor who no one thinks to recall.

we need a governor who no one thinks to recall.

And how did said recall work out? I can’t “recall”...

Oh yeah, now I remember. It failed 62-38. Almost identical to his election win in 18. So, no.

Apologies. Nuisance Newsom was lieutenant governor when he ignored the vote of Californians twice, not state attorney general.

Nemo,

That there was even an attempt at a recall says much about Newsom’s unfitness.

No. It says a lot about the fact that a recall in the absence of malfeasance is a fundamentally stupid idea.

The GOP lost. They didn’t like it. So they launched a recall hoping that low voter turnout would allow them to boot a legally elected official they couldn’t beat.

All they needed was 1/2 plus one and one would think that the enraged voters would gather en-mass (tiki torches and pitchforks in hand no less) to eject the tyrant!

And yet, not so much.

The recall law is fundamentally un-democratic, tilted in favor of the recall era, and yet by a 2:1 margin the citizens said stuff it.

That’s really what it said.

Some parts of the US are good to visit, at certain times of the year, but along the coast of California is beautiful all year long. I talk about leaving with friends and neighbors, and the consensus viewpoint toward those who want to leave? "Don't let the door hit you on the behind on your way out."

Unemployment records are very different from the actual percentages as they do not account for those who have “dropped off the map” due to loss of benefits, and a wide variety of other reasons..

That data is indeed captured in something called the labor participation rate, which captures the percent of the working age population that is employed or looking for a job.

Btw, you will find the labor participation rate fell across the board for the entire US during the pandemic. It is one of the strange artifacts of this pandemic that many older workers simply quit and never went back. There is also a longer term trend that pre-dates the pandemic of female workforce participation falling that if memory serves dates to the 2008 depression / "Great Recession". that reversed a decades long trend of increasing female workforce participation. These are national trends not confined to a few states or one state.

 but, as Californians, we need a governor who no one thinks to recall.

The recall effort against Gov. Newsom was led by the same anti-vaccination mob that mounted unsuccessful recall attempts against State Senator, and practicing pediatrician, Richard Pan in 2015 and 2019. His great sin? Writing legislation that passed both houses of the State Legislature and were later signed into law that tightened requirements for childhood vaccinations, eliminated many reasons for parents to not vaccinate their children and to prosecute doctors who abused their discretion in writing bogus medical excuses. Here was a pediatrician who knew their games from the inside who wrote legislation to cut the cheaters off at the knees, and the cheaters and conspiracy nut jobs were engaged by him. The same mob attacked Gov. Newsom for his Covid-19 policies. The voters, however, understood these recalls for what they were, sour grapes by a far right minority, and remembered what happened the last time a California Governor was recalled. We got no-neck, Cousin Ahnold, annual budget deficits and contention. Lesson learned the hard way. The state has had annual budget surpluses under Governor's Brown and Newsom.

but along the coast of California is beautiful all year long.

The coast of California from Morro Bay north to Monterey is a national treasure worth seeing any time of year.

the consensus viewpoint toward those who want to leave? "Don't let the door hit you on the behind on your way out."

Exactly! I will add that from experience an awful of these people find out that the grass only looks greener on the other side of the hill until you find out what it's fertilized with! A lot of them come slinking back to California after learning this lesson the hard way. I have seen it countless times. Count me among those. I had to leave to really appreciate my birthplace. Now I will never again leave, except to travel.

California no longer counts in its calculation people who have been out of work so long.