Opinion: California’s comeback is spotty
By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee
As he sought re-election to his fourth and last term as governor this year, Jerry Brown crowed about a “California comeback” after weathering the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Dan Walters
He was particularly adept at selling it to out-of-state media types who liked the story line and didn’t delve into details.
In fact, California’s recovery has been very slow and very spotty, largely confined to the San Francisco Bay Area and a few other coastal enclaves.
We have regained, on paper, the million-plus jobs lost during the recession, but that superficially positive factoid ignores growth in the labor force and an unpleasant truth that many of those new jobs are low-paying and/or part-time.
California’s unemployment rate in October, 7.3 percent, was fifth highest among the states.
“nation’s highest rate of poverty by an alternate measurement devised by the U.S. Census Bureau, with nearly a quarter of the state’s residents impoverished.”
California is a trend setter in many ways. If this is caused by technology displacing jobs as the cotton gin did,……..