Drum roll, please
The real Cali story is infinitely darker. It’s time for The Top 7 Things The National Media Always Ignore About Jerry Brown.
1. California has the worst poverty rate of any state. Worse than Mississippi. Worse than West Virginia. Worse than Nevada. So much for the narrative of Jerry Brown as Mr. Economic Growth.
2. California’s unemployment rate may be down from its past high, but that’s not because of any broad economic rebound at all, it’s because part-time jobs are growing and hundreds of thousands of residents have stopped looking for jobs. In the Labor Department’s U-6 category, measuring the percentage of adults who want full-time jobs but can’t find them, California has the second worst rate in the U.S. About 19 percent of these workers — nearly one in five — can’t find work.
3. The idea that the state’s finances are in good shape depends on really aggressive cherry-picking. Here’s what I wrote in June:
“California is far from being in good fiscal health. When Gov. Jerry Brown talks about reducing the ‘wall of debt’ he inherited upon taking office three years ago, he leaves out huge problems — problems that Sacramento has either not addressed or barely addressed:
“• $87 billion in unfunded liabilities for the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. The $87 billion would be far higher if not for the rosy investment assumptions used by CalPERS.
“• $73 billion in unfunded liabilities for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, a sum that increases a staggering $6 billion a year. The $73 billion would be far higher if not for the rosy investment assumptions by CalSTRS.
“• $64 billion in unfunded liabilities for health insurance coverage guaranteed to retired employees.
“• $8.2 billion in money borrowed from the federal government to replenish the state’s broke unemployment compensation fund. California only pays the interest on the debt.”
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