A friend of ours in Kalif reports her power bill was $300 last month (they just deregulated utilities). Claims they will bail the state at retirement time as it's just too expensive to live there anymore. Maybe that's why the middle class is shrinking - or it might be because the Dems runs everything, thereby destroying the middle class.
They can give courses on how to ruin a good state.
http://www.shns.com/stories/view-story.php?slug=CALINCOME-08-22-00
Report: California's economic picture darkening
By CHRISTIAN BERTHELSEN
San Francisco Examiner
SAN FRANCISCO -- Income for California families is declining against average family incomes for the nation as a whole, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Citing what it described as the lasting impact of the cutbacks in the aerospace industry and a large influx of immigrant laborers who are generally younger and less educated, the report found that the economic picture for Californians was not as rosy as it was typically perceived, despite its newly minted dotcom millionaires, movie moguls and real estate barons.
Beyond that, the report also adds to a growing body of work that appears to show the income gap between rich and poor is growing wider and more stark all the time, and may become a factor both as an election-year issue and as a consideration in hearings this fall over whether to raise the minimum wage.
The Legislative Analysts Office, a sort of think tank for the California Legislature, issued a report last month finding that income for the top 20 percent of the state's wage earners had risen while wages for the bottom 80 percent had fallen, in real terms. And the Public Policy Institute of California concluded last year that the growing gap between rich and poor had increased at a rate faster in the Golden State since the 1980s than it had in the nation at large.
Mary Daly, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank, said the purpose of the report was to add some context to the growing debate over the increasing economic stratification.
The news comes even as California's economy has grown at a rate faster than the rest of the nation's over the last five years. It found a greater number of state residents lived in poverty, the middle class was shrinking, and a majority of families had incomes below the level of their counterparts nationwide. While income growth for median families outside of California grew by more than 8 percent between 1989 and 1998, median income inside the state declined by 4 percent.
What is more, the statistics show that California families had higher incomes than families elsewhere in the United States until the 1990s, but that relative gains outside the state began to surpass those of residents inside the state.
"At first glance, the income statistics on California suggest that seven years of economic expansion have left state residents worse off than those residing elsewhere in the U.S.," the report concludes.
They can give courses on how to ruin a good state.
http://www.shns.com/stories/view-story.php?slug=CALINCOME-08-22-00
Report: California's economic picture darkening
By CHRISTIAN BERTHELSEN
San Francisco Examiner
SAN FRANCISCO -- Income for California families is declining against average family incomes for the nation as a whole, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Citing what it described as the lasting impact of the cutbacks in the aerospace industry and a large influx of immigrant laborers who are generally younger and less educated, the report found that the economic picture for Californians was not as rosy as it was typically perceived, despite its newly minted dotcom millionaires, movie moguls and real estate barons.
Beyond that, the report also adds to a growing body of work that appears to show the income gap between rich and poor is growing wider and more stark all the time, and may become a factor both as an election-year issue and as a consideration in hearings this fall over whether to raise the minimum wage.
The Legislative Analysts Office, a sort of think tank for the California Legislature, issued a report last month finding that income for the top 20 percent of the state's wage earners had risen while wages for the bottom 80 percent had fallen, in real terms. And the Public Policy Institute of California concluded last year that the growing gap between rich and poor had increased at a rate faster in the Golden State since the 1980s than it had in the nation at large.
Mary Daly, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank, said the purpose of the report was to add some context to the growing debate over the increasing economic stratification.
The news comes even as California's economy has grown at a rate faster than the rest of the nation's over the last five years. It found a greater number of state residents lived in poverty, the middle class was shrinking, and a majority of families had incomes below the level of their counterparts nationwide. While income growth for median families outside of California grew by more than 8 percent between 1989 and 1998, median income inside the state declined by 4 percent.
What is more, the statistics show that California families had higher incomes than families elsewhere in the United States until the 1990s, but that relative gains outside the state began to surpass those of residents inside the state.
"At first glance, the income statistics on California suggest that seven years of economic expansion have left state residents worse off than those residing elsewhere in the U.S.," the report concludes.
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