Raytheon splits California

May 7, 2013

By John Seiler

The California economy seems to be doing well. Unemployment is down. The governor’s May Revise of the budget surplus, due next week, likely will report an unexpected $4.5 billion in extra revenue.

Except that companies keep leaving the state. The latest from the Dallas Business Journal:

“Raytheon Co. plans to move the headquarters of a $6 billion business unit from El Segundo, Calif. to McKinney, the company said Thursday.

“Raytheon’s Space and Airborne Systems, one of the company’s four business units, will move in an effort to streamline operations, increase productivity and achieve stronger alignment with its customers’ priorities. The Waltham, Mass.-based electronics, mission systems and defense technology parent company already has a presence in McKinney.

“The move will bring jobs to North Texas, said Dave Desilets, a Raytheon spokesman. However, he was unable to provide details on the number of jobs.

“‘The number of headquarters staff is relatively small when you compare it with our existing employees (in North Texas),'”Desilets said.

“In North Texas, Raytheon has 8,000 employees.

“Real estate sources say the move will bring about 170 jobs, which have an average salary of $250,000.”

A $250,000 average salary. That means a lot of those jobs would be higher than $250,00 a year and so would have been paying the “millionaires’ tax” from Proposition 30, which actually starts at $250,000.

Remember how Gov. Jerry Brown said “the rich should pay their fair share”? Well, in expensive California, $250,000 a year doesn’t make you rich. And all those 170 jobs no longer will be paying taxes in Taxifornia, unless they vacation at Disneyland.

Although things seem to be going well now with the California economy, we’ll see.