Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

[Rajiv]

Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

SACRAMENTO, Calif.—On this Labor Day weekend, many Californians find themselves more in need of work than a holiday.

A report released Sunday says two of five working-age Californians do not have a job, underscoring the challenges in one of the toughest job markets in decades. A new study has found that the last time employment levels among this group were this low was February 1977.

The study was done by the California Budget Project, a Sacramento-based nonprofit research group that advocates for lower- and middle-income families. The report said that California now has about the same number of jobs as it did nine years ago, when the state was home to 3.3 million fewer working-age people.

California Budget Project executive director Jean Ross recommended Congress adopt a second extension of unemployment insurance benefits. Those checks pay between $200 and $1,800 a month depending on a worker's previous earnings.

[touchring]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

Come to singapore, there are plenty of jobs in the service industry. the pay is low, but there are more jobs than there are job seekers.

[vinoveri]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

I would suggest that this is blatant "disinformation" in the sense of the statistic "working age Californian".

We all know that being of working age does not necessarily mean one is looking for a job, e.g., homemakers etc.

A better stat would be to reveal the % of people looking for (who want ) work, and also those who can't find it within some time period.

[Rajiv]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

Working Age Population is a very standard statistic, and is very useful when comparing unemployment statistics where demographics are changing

The total population in a region, within a set range of ages, that is considered to be able and likely to work. The working-age population measure is used to give an estimate of the total number of potential workers within an economy. Each region may have a different range of ages, but typically the ages of 20 to 65 are used.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

I would suggest that this is blatant "disinformation" in the sense of the statistic "working age Californian".

Presented as it was, explicitly to shock the reader, it was blatant disinformation, yes.

If it had been presented with (1) care to note that this is not the usual unemployment number based on comparisons against how many want work, but rather had a larger base, and (2) some history of the number so one could tell if it was getting worse or better, then it could have been useful information.

[pianodoctor]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

I'd also be interested in knowing their definition of "job". For instance, a significant percent of people are self-employed. Are those counted as "jobs"? And then there are so many doing things like landscape, domestic help, itinerant construction day workers, and all manner of work where there is no corporation reporting them officially as "employees". And then there are the "subs"- working for a corporation but not an employee- a category that has grown tremendously over the years.

I highly doubt those "2 out of 5" people are taking all this into account. It would take massive and very expensive research effort to really be able to say how many real-life willing workers are unable to find any kind of real-life work.

California has got a bad unemployment problem to be sure. But 40%? No way. No friggin' way.

However, could the real number (whatever it is) be as bad as 1977? That's another story. That would not surprise me.

[Rajiv]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

The actual report as opposed to the sound bite can be found here

The Key Findings of the report

The Recession Has Battered California’s Job Market

• Two years of job losses erased four years of job gains. California lost 952,800 nonfarm jobs between July 2007 and July 2009 – far more than the 846,600 jobs the state added during the growth years between July 2003 and July 2007.

• California has approximately the same number of jobs as it did nine years ago. The recession has been so severe that the number of nonfarm jobs in July 2009 was approximately the same as in January 2000, when the state
was home to 3.3 million fewer working-age individuals.

• A smaller share of Californians is working today than at any point since the late 1970s. Fewer than three out of five of the state’s working-age adults (57.5 percent) had jobs in July 2009. Employment levels in California were last this low in February 1977.

• Recent job losses have been deeper than those of prior recessions. California’s job losses have been large not only in number, but also in percentage terms. The state’s nonfarm jobs declined by 6.3 percent between July 2007 and July 2009 – a larger percentage decline in jobs than the state experienced during any prior downturn for which employment data are available.

• Nearly all major sectors of California’s economy have lost jobs during the downturn. By far, construction has suffered the largest percentage drop since the onset of the recession, with July 2009 employment down by 29.4 percent from July 2007. The number of jobs in financial activities declined by 11.4 percent during the same period, while manufacturing jobs dropped by 11.2 percent.

California’s Unemployment and Underemployment Rates Reached All-Time Highs

• California’s unemployment rate hit a record high of 11.9 percent in July 2009. The state’s jobless rate is higher than that of all but three other states and has risen faster during the current downturn than during any prior recession for which comparable data are available.

• More than one out of four unemployed Californians (28.2 percent) had been jobless for more than six months in July 2009 – the highest level ever recorded. Nearly half (47.9 percent) of the state’s unemployed had been jobless for at least 15 weeks.

• Nationally, there were nearly six job seekers for every job available in June 2009. This figure reflects the fact that there were 12.2 million more unemployed individuals than job openings.

• The monthly number of jobless Californians filing initial claims for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits increased by approximately 152,000 (81.9 percent) between June 2007 and June 2009. Yet only half of California’s unemployed (50.6 percent) received UI benefits in the first quarter of 2009 because of restrictive eligibility rules.

California has a lower UI recipiency rate than 37 other states.

• Many Californians are likely to run out of UI benefits before they can fi nd work. In March 2009, California enacted legislation enabling the state’s jobless to take advantage of extended UI benefi ts available through the federal economic recovery act. However, nearly 178,000 Californians are expected to exhaust these benefi ts by the end of 2009.

• The number of underemployed Californians more than doubled in two years. Approximately 1.4 million Californians were underemployed in July 2009, meaning that they were working part-time “involuntarily” either because their employers reduced their hours of work or because they could not find full-time jobs.

• Nearly one out of five working-age adults (18.5 percent) was “underutilized” in July 2009. Underutilized adults are those who are not working, but want jobs, or who are working part-time, but want to work full-time.

• Unemployment rates for California’s men and Latinoshave risen steeply. The jobless rate for men increased by 5.5 percentage points between July 2007 and July 2009, compared to a 3.7 percentage-point increase for women. The
unemployment rate for California’s Latino workers increased by 6.8 percentage points during this period, while the jobless rate for whites rose by 4.7 percentage points. These trends reflect the fact that men and Latinos are more likely to work in sectors of the economy that have been hardest hit by the downturn.

The Recession Has Diminished Workers’ Earnings

• Workers’ hourly wages lost purchasing power across the earnings distribution as the recession deepened. The inflation-adjusted hourly wage of the typical California worker – the worker exactly at the middle of the earnings distribution – declined by 0.5 percent between the first half of 2008 and the same months of 2009, while that of the state’s low-wage earners – workers with earnings at the 20th percentile of the distribution – fell by 1.6 percent. During the same period, the hourly wage of the state’s high wage
workers – those with earnings at the 80th percentile of the distribution – dropped by 1.8 percent, after adjusting for inflation.

• Reduced hours of work diminished many workers’ weekly earnings. Weekly hours for the average worker in the middle fifth of the earnings distribution fell by 1.7 percent between the fi rst half of 2008 and the same months of 2009. This decline in hours, together with a 0.1 percent drop in the average worker’s infl ation-adjusted hourly wage, diminished the average worker’s weekly earnings by a total of 1.8 percent. Reduced hours of work also diminished low wage workers’ weekly earnings.

• The gap between low-wage and high-wage California workers widened during the past generation. The inflation-adjusted hourly wage of the state’s low-wage workers declined by 6.0 percent between 1979 and 2008, while that of the typical worker increased by just 3.7 percent. In contrast, the hourly wage of California’s high-wage workers rose by 21.2 percent, after adjusting for inflation – nearly six times the increase of the typical worker’s wage.

Recent Income Gains Were Not Broadly Shared

• The bulk of recent income gains went to the wealthiest Californians. More than three-quarters (76.8 percent) of the increase in total adjusted gross income (AGI) between 2006 and 2007 went to the wealthiest fifth of California’s personal income taxpayers. Nearly one-third (30.0 percent) of the gains in AGI went to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. In contrast, just 6.0 percent of the increase in AGI went to taxpayers with incomes in the middle fifth of the distribution.

• Recent uneven income gains continue a longer-term trend. The inflation-adjusted AGI of the average California taxpayer in the top 1 percent rose by 117.3 percent between 1995 and 2007 – nearly 13 times the gain of the average middle-income taxpayer (9.1 percent).

• The top 1 percent of taxpayers has nearly doubled its share of AGI since the early 1990s. One-quarter (25.2 percent) of total AGI went to the wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers in 2007, nearly twice their share (13.8 percent) in 1993.

• The share of income going to the top 1 percent of US taxpayers is at a 79-year high. In 2007, the wealthiest 1 percent of the nation’s taxpayers had the second-highest share of income on record; the only higher share was in 1928.

[pianodoctor]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

2 Quotes from that article:

1. "Fewer than three out of five of the state’s working-age adults (57.5 percent) had jobs in July 2009"

2. "Nearly one out of five working-age adults (18.5 percent) was “underutilized” in July 2009. Underutilized adults are those who are not working, but want jobs, or who are working part-time, but want to work full-time."

Whaddya, whaddya? :rolleyes:

Lots of trust funders and "kept" mates?

[MulaMan]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

Yes if you take into account "self-employed" that is California real estate agents, then easily 50% of Californians are unemployed.

Go drive down 405 in LA, it went from 24hr traffic jam to easy sailing during evening rush hour. Yes a part of that is the massive amount of illegal Mexican immigrants driving to construction jobs no more.

2 out of 5 in Californian's sounds very accurate and I believe it is weighted towards southern California so you probably have 1 in 5 northern cal and 3 in 5 in southern cal and central valley.

CALIFORNIA IS GOING TO BLOW!

Mark my words, run as far away from California as you can.

[FRED]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

I'd also be interested in knowing their definition of "job". For instance, a significant percent of people are self-employed. Are those counted as "jobs"? And then there are so many doing things like landscape, domestic help, itinerant construction day workers, and all manner of work where there is no corporation reporting them officially as "employees". And then there are the "subs"- working for a corporation but not an employee- a category that has grown tremendously over the years.

I highly doubt those "2 out of 5" people are taking all this into account. It would take massive and very expensive research effort to really be able to say how many real-life willing workers are unable to find any kind of real-life work.

California has got a bad unemployment problem to be sure. But 40%? No way. No friggin' way.

However, could the real number (whatever it is) be as bad as 1977? That's another story. That would not surprise me.

According to the IRS, the total number of self-employed who filed tax returns in 2007 was 23,122,698 out of 138,471,400 total individual tax returns.

Detailed data are available here.

[pianodoctor]

Re: Study: 2 out of 5 working-age Californians jobless

Not to be smug, but no way am I running away from here. They'll have to kick me out.