Calif. unemployment jumps to 11%

April 20, 2012

By John Seiler

California’s economy continues to stagnate. According to new numbers, state unemployment rose from 10.9 percent in March to 11 percent in April. Yet Gov. Jerry Brown, the powerful government-worker unions, liberal activist lawyer Molly Munger and columnists like George Skelton insist that taxes be raised. Yet tax increases would slam the economy even more, raising unemployment higher.

The only “jobs” they care about are those of the government workers, whom Brown calls his “troops.” The rest of us are just taxpayers-slaves forced to subsidize the most incompetent, wasteful state government in American history. That is, until state regulations and taxes kill our jobs and we’re forced to move out of state.

A paltry 18,200 people found new jobs in March, the eighth straight month of increases. Yet economist Dennis Meyers of the state Department of Finance, part of the Brown administration, actually said,  “These are still not stupendous gains, but definitely we’re stringing them together now.”

What we’re really “stringing together” is stagnation.

Meanwhile, unemployment in Texas dropped from 7.1 percent in February to 7.0 percent in March. That’s what happens in a state that’s pro-business, with reasonable business regulations and low taxes — including no state income taxes. Put another way, unemployment in California is a whopping 71 percent higher than in Texas.

Gov. Brown keeps yapping about the “California dream” being alive and well. He’s right — but it moved to Texas.