The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its May jobs report Friday morning, estimating that nonfarm payrolls went up 75,000 with the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.6%, remaining at low levels last seen in December 1969. The Hispanic unemployment rate remained at a record low of 4.2% in May while the unemployment rate for workers without...
A series of three seemingly unconnected events over five days in Ohio and California hint at a fundamental political realignment, underscoring the fragility of the American left’s coalition going into the 2020 election. There is a growing, and likely irreparable, rift between elite progressive environmentalists who are accustomed to dominating the narrative within the Democratic...
Los Angeles has a growing problem with diseases borne by both flea and feces. An LAPD officer was just diagnosed with typhoid fever along with two more from the same workplace displaying symptoms. Meanwhile, cases of typhus, caused by a different bacterium, have soared in California from 13 in 2008 to 167 in 2018. In addition, there have...
Pension Tracker, a project of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research led by former California State Assemblyman Joe Nation, Ph.D., is out with its updated assessment of the nation’s unfunded state and local government pension fund liabilities. It’s not a pretty picture—especially if you live in Alaska, California, Connecticut or Illinois where your per...
Job growth has been running 80% stronger in low-tax states than in high-tax states since the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 in December 2017. Understanding why holds important lessons for policy, economics, and politics. The new tax law scaled back the federal subsidy for high state and local taxes. Prior...
One in every five Americans calls California or Texas home. Comparisons between the two most-populous states are useful because both states have diverse populations and economies, but vastly different politics. That, in turn, leads to divergent public policies in taxation and regulation—with very different outcomes. Demographically, California and Texas both feature minority-majority populations, with the...
Trying to stand out in a crowded field, Democratic candidates for president have so far proposed nine separate tax increase ideas totaling more than $10 trillion. We can break them down into three basic groups. First are tax hikes that hit banks or Wall Street—two interests without a lot of friends. The problem with these is...
TPPF’s Chuck DeVore addressed the Independent Power Producers of New York and spoke about the difference between logic and virtue-signaling. Logic, he said, is about the facts. Virtue-signaling isn’t. Take Georgetown, Texas—the Austin suburb that has pledged to use 100 percent renewable electricity. Its promise achieves all the right political goals, but when the facts...
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Green New Deal — an update to the “Sustainable City Plan” released in April — sets out three broad goal categories: increase the quality of life; reduce pollution that harms people; and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. L.A.’s quality of life challenges are nothing new to any person familiar with the...
When the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia in 1787, foremost among their concerns was addressing the growing tendency among states to tax or inhibit their neighbors’ commercial trade. New York was an especially nettlesome practitioner of economic warfare on adjacent states, placing import duties on New Jersey cabbage and Connecticut firewood...
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its April employment report this morning, showing continued robust growth in the job market with 263,000 jobs added in April. The official unemployment rate is now 3.6%, the lowest it has been since 1969. Notably, wages were up 3.2% from a year ago. With inflation remaining tame, real buying power...
The U.S. economy grew at a 3.2% annual rate in the first quarter, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Analysts expected a far slower growth rate of 2.3%. President Trump has consistently said that his pro-growth policies—tax cuts and regulatory reform—would shift the economy into higher growth than was experienced under his predecessor, President Obama. The economy...