CA’s unemployment rate declines to 6.3 percent, still 17 percent higher than the national rate:

“For both California and the U.S., improvement in the unemployment rate continues to stem primarily from the shift in the status of the unemployed, as they have moved to the employed category or left the workforce. There has been little change in the overall labor force, and as discussed below, California’s labor force participation rate remains at 1976 levels.

“California’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 17 percent higher than the national rate. California’s ranking again improved slightly to be the 11th highest unemployment rate among the states.”

Labor force participation rate remains at 62.3 percent, matching previous low in 1976:

“California’s persistently low participation rate is an indication the state still is not producing sufficient jobs at a wage rate sufficient to draw disengaged workers back into the labor force. This decline in the relative number of workers has an immediate effect on total household income, with its attendant effects on the ability of those households to afford California’s high housing, energy, and other costs of living.”

Six industries remain below 2007 pre-recession job level; construction and manufacturing remain the hardest-hit industries after the recession:

Source: California Employment Development Department, Wage & Salary Jobs (not seasonally adjusted), Average Annual Wage (Q3 2014)

Bay Area continues to dominate employment growth; Inland Empire also shows strong employment growth:

Read the full report here.

By Chris Reed

Over the weekend, the U-T San Diego had a story about the Texas vs. California business-climate debate. It featured an astounding claim from Gov. Jerry Brown’s top economics adviser:

“California provides a higher level of service than other states, said Kish Rajan, director of California Gov. Jerry Brown’s Office of Business and Economic Development, Go-Biz.

“Rajan defended the state’s tax rates, saying they fund key services and are a known quantity to businesses who can budget for them. But, he said, there is work to be done on overlapping and confusing regulations.

“’I think that a lot of things that these states are selling are lower costs, lower costs, lower costs, and our mantra in California is we’re not in a race to the bottom with any other state,’ he said. ‘We have found a way in our state to have very high quality, very high value. We’ve proven that you can have a successful economy and still preserve the environment and look after workers and protect consumers and look after the public health.’”

No, you aren’t hallucinating. I didn’t make up the part that I boldfaced.  Jerry Brown’s economics guru really did describe California as having a “successful economy.” I laughed up a storm at that. But if I were without a job in our rotten economy, or had a spouse, parent or kid who had been hunting for work without success for years, I would be infuriated.

Brown administration blithely indifferent to economic suffering

Here’s part of my U-T San Diego editorial reacting to this blithe ignorance and indifference from the Brown administration:

“So the Golden State has a ‘successful economy’? Really?

“California is in its longest sustained stretch of high unemployment since the depression. Its jobless rate has been higher than 8 percent since September 2008. For 52 months, there have been at least 1.5 million people in this state actively seeking work who can’t find jobs. And those numbers don’t even reflect the ‘underemployed’ – those with part-time jobs – and the hundreds of thousands of people who have given up looking for work. In January, the state’s unemployment rate was 9.8 percent, among the worst of any state and significantly higher than the national average of 7.9 percent.

“Rajan’s comments make clear the immense disconnect between the powerful wing of California’s Democratic coalition – urban professionals, academics, public employees and those in the entertainment industry – and the coalition’s ignored wing – poor and lower-middle-income residents who struggle to find work and make a living in our expensive state.

“California has a ‘successful economy’ for those who have jobs. Those who can’t find full-time work? Jerry Brown says, ‘Let them eat cake.’”

Joel Kotkin, the brilliant Los Angeles demographer and a Democrat himself, has written about his party’s indifference to the poor and minorities and its hostility to capitalism for years. Here’s how to judge whether California most influential Democrats will like a policy proposal: Does it make a thrill go up the legs of the denizens of the faculty lounge? If not, who cares?