Opinion: California’s economy better than people think
By Mike Rossi
Recently it has become popular in some circles to blame California’s “business climate” when companies eliminate jobs. The inaccurate depiction of California as unfriendly toward business is a marketing narrative that was developed by other states trying to compete with our success.
Now it has been adopted by partisan media commentators who trumpet the virtues of less successful states and allow companies to avoid accountability for laying off hardworking Californians by invoking the “business climate” scapegoat.
The fact is that California is once again the national leader in job creation. In the past year, California has added 298,000 private-sector jobs – an increase of 2.1 percent, which is more than New York, New Jersey, Florida and Nevada combined.
Furthermore, the construction industry added 31,000 jobs in that same period, accounting for 6 percent job growth – that’s the largest gain since before the housing crash. Our information technology jobs have surpassed pre-recession levels, and professional services, health care, education, trade and transportation have all posted significant gains this year.
Yet, in some circles, the facts are no match for anonymous surveys of CEOs that rank California at the bottom of the list. These surveys report the same findings year after year no matter how well or poorly our economy is doing. Exactly the same “findings” were reported in 2006, when California was enjoying three straight years of record growth, with close to the lowest unemployment in our state’s history and a $6 billion surplus.
California was riding a wave of economic success and yet the CEOs who were enjoying record profits still ranked California at the bottom of the list.
Meanwhile, Texas consistently ranks toward the top with states like Nevada, South Dakota and Wyoming following close behind. What do all these states have in common besides vast uninhabited areas with no population and no requirements for infrastructure?
None of them has personal or corporate income taxes. When CEOs say they are overtaxed in states like California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey (all states at the bottom of the list) what they really mean is that given the choice, they would rather pay no taxes at all.
Another oft-cited but completely misleading statistic is the number 254.
That’s supposed to be the number of businesses that left California in 2011. But that number was generated solely by a “relocation specialist” who wants to move companies out of California.
That number – if it’s even accurate – represents less than 0.007 percent of the total number of California firms.
Yes, companies have chosen to expand elsewhere, but we have also seen companies moving and expanding in California like Samsung, Dell, Bluhomes, Altec, Zollner and Advanced Call Center Technologies. All of these companies performed nationwide searches for places to relocate or expand and ultimately chose California.
While these are great acquisitions, the Public Policy Institute of California noted most job gains are due to the expansion of existing companies.
Just this week Sutter Health announced it is opening a new facility in Roseville that will employ upward of 1,000 people, and Amazon announced the opening of a San Bernardino facility that will create 700 jobs, in addition to the 350 jobs it created in Patterson earlier this year.
And, of course, California now gets $1 of every $2 in new venture capital funding as our leading innovators and entrepreneurs choose California as the place to be.
The bottom line is our competitors built a narrative while California was enduring the most disruptive economic crisis in our state’s history. They did this to try to usurp our position as the nation’s leader. Don’t help our competitors carry out their scavengery by rehashing the same tired talking points that are not supported by facts.
No one is denying that our state has challenges that need to be addressed. But encouraging companies to leave only further erodes confidence and contributes to job losses.
There was once a time when someone took a shot at the home team and the fans would rally to defend the honor of the franchise.
It’s time for Californians to recognize the state’s positive momentum and do whatever it takes to keep it going.
Mike Rossi is Gov. Jerry Brown’s senior adviser for jobs and business development. This column originally appeared in the Sacramento Bee.
Simply dead wrong puff piece from the Governor’s “advisor”.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has the true statistics. 15 minutes of study on the Federal and State sites will reveal the true situation.
Bottom line: Company’s go where the profits are; people move to where the jobs are, welfare not withstanding.
People invest where the money is.
The boom years in California are over.
This person does not get it because she works for the problem. Big government that gets in the way at every step. To blame income tax is just stupid. Try dealing with the Air Resourses Board that will make you want to move right there.
The smugness and cluelessness that was written in this piece shows why the state government does not see a problem which is why there is a problem. The media bias is on the left and as she state even they see that there are major issues.
Get a clue Jerry Brown and friends.
Oh yeah…I almost forgot. Make sure you vote for our latest tax increase!
Ha ha..PLEASE DON’T BE FOOLED BY BROWN AND FRIENDS. NO ON PROP 30.
If you haven’t seen the latest flim-flam of Gov. Moonbeam, check out this piece of work!! http://www.sfgate.com/business/bottomline/article/State-use-of-homeowner-fund-not-the-norm-3961581.php
Vote NO on Any tax Jerry wants!!!!
Robert, Please cite where on the BLS statistics it show what you are saying. Actually annual BLS data shows that we are steadily increasing in employment(listed in thousands, seasonally adjusted)
Year Annual
2002 14458.5
2003 14393.5
2004 14533.4
2005 14802.1
2006 15064.7
2007 15184.5
2008 14995.0
2009 14091.5
2010 13936.7
2011 14060.5
2012 14333.8 (preliminary for Sept).
We have been on a steady increasing month over month.
As for Gov Moonbean… Any idea how he got that name? It was because he was an original thinker and the person who coined it, regretted deeply.It was coined because one of Brown’s thoughts in his first term was to create a state space academy and purchase a satellite for emergency communications because he thought that was the future… hmmm looking at the number of communication satellites we now have, one might say he was right and ahead of his time.
I think most people that follow the government employment numbers are realizing that they are suspect at best. Many think they are outright lies.
A second point would be the quality of jobs, here too I think most people are realizing that the type of jobs being added are lower wage and often times temporary positions. Except for government jobs, they continue to go up in pay rates and new studies show the pay level for government is over 30 percent higher than for private sector and that does not include their lavish benefits.
The most critical point is the number of small businesses, not consulting type jobs or starbucks but the producing jobs, the creators of products, these types of companies are not increasing they are decreasing.
Government shills continues to lie and deceive us and I for one think it should be a crime and punishable with prison terms.
California is toast for years to come and it will get worse from here.
Well it’s clear from most of these responses that few will let any facts get in the way of their cherished opinions. It should be obvious to anymore whose brain still functions that environmental and social protections cost money – and they will reflect in some sort of cost somewhere. If you want to go back to the Halcyon days of 24 hour, smoke-belching money making manufacturing plants, where your boss was more than willing to let you (and your 14 year old child) work 12 hours a day 7 days a week, maybe China is a good option? Get real folks, no one said it’s perfect, but the sky ain’t falling either!
Here is a 10 point list for anyone who doubts California’s poor ranking among other states.
http://www.nctimes.com/top-ten-reasons-why-companies-are-leaving-california/article_be130984-2fe2-52f1-b49e-3cc2e28fbe70.html
Hey arty, Unless you are one of the 1%ers that wrote that love poem to greed that you just posted here, you are condemned to the curvy couch foxNfriends world.
Mr. Fox, your pronouncements about the condemnation of others is meaningless.
Lisa, statistics can be almost anything you want them to be, and the sources are easy to find. The bottom line is that employment is increasing slowly due to how it is measured, and reported.
One must be quite careful, as part-time workers, seasonal workers, and some others, are not counted the same way over the years. The Federal Government has been one of the worst offenders in this regard, where the 7.8% figure is not directly comparable to old figures, since the folks not actively looking for work, and some others, are not in the calculations. There ARE figures with the total unemployed, for example, but they are buried and you have to dig into the government reports.
As for businesses leaving California, it is a NET loss, and has been for some time. It is a net loss for employees as well as net loss for CA State taxes, both sales and corporate.
Talk about poor education… get with reality people!
California is estimated to have an unfunded liability in between $500 billion and $800 billion dollars. That is in addition to the official bond debt of around $90 billion dollars.
Your annual state budget is ruffly $80 billion and you can’t even come close to covering that…
How are you ever going to pay for the debt?
No one seems to deal with or understand reality in California…
That is why so many people are leaving. Those staying will continue to watch the once great state decline month after month until it just collapses.
Hey Arty… that article you posted is written by the SAME person who came up with the fallacious number of companies that are supposedly leaving California. You can’t use an article as support for a number that was created by the writer of the article. And Robert, the numbers have been calculated in exactly the same way since the Reagan era (His admin changed how we calculate these numbers, which is why is showed such a reduction under him era… but it hasn’t changed again since). Right now I have forms from about 23 states on my desk at work for me to report wage and hour statistics from my company that will them be formulated into BLS statistics. BLS statistics are non-partisan and the workforce there doesn’t change when the party of the President or the Congress changes. Unemployment? I had an employee steal from us (I have a police report) and was still awarded unemployment…;. Oh wait, that was Michigan, it is a pain to get employment regulatory issues dealt with and I am getting no help from the state govt… oh wait, that is NY. We have our problems, but I’ll stay here.
I made NO claim about partisanship. I simply said the truth, the method by which the Government calculates these things has changed, especially over the last 6 years or so. The numbers are absolutely not calculated the same way.
That applies to the State; and it applies to the Federal Government. The rest of your reply does nothing but obscure.
Please cite your sources that we have changed how we calculate. As an HR professional, I am really interested to see them and promise to read your citations.
Hey Lisa, those sources may be the same ones that W. Thurston Romney attempted to use during the debate tonight. I’d be embarrassed if that guy was my candidate.
My favorite line is the one that Syria being in Iran’s path to the sea. Apparently he has said this on at least 5 occasions since last April. Only problem is that Syria shares no border with Iran and Iran has about 1,500 miles of coast line. It is like saying Colorado stands in the way of California’s path to the sea. Just plain scary. I am clearly a Democrat, but I really think there had to be many Republicans that could have been a better candidate.
So…I make this long comment, covering what Lisa asked for, including references to the Fed’s own charts, etc., at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.htm
…and to local conditions, etc….and I fill in the name and mail address…click on Submit…and it disappears and asks for my name and E again.
I give up for today.
Robert