96.5% of New Jobs in California This Year Were Government Jobs

UPDATE below:

While California Governor Gavin Newsom is traveling around the state gaslighting residents and the media about his purported successes, no one is doing business in the once Golden State. That’s because California is the only employer doing the hiring.

96.5% of new jobs in California this year were government jobs.

Is it any wonder so many people are fleeing the state?

Government jobs do not create wealth – they consume wealth and redistribute it because it is taxpayers who pay for all of it.

The Hoover Institution reported in August:

Between January 2022 and June 2024, employment in US private businesses increased by about 7.32 million jobs. Of these 7.32 million jobs, about 5,400 were jobs created in California businesses—representing about .07 percent of the US figure. Put differently, if California private-sector jobs grew at the same rate as in the rest of the country, they would have increased by over 970,000 during that period, about 180 times greater than the actual increase.

[Data is from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. For total jobs, see the data tool. The calculation for California private-sector jobs is derived from total jobs minus California government jobs.]

Apparently California is already a Socialist state.

There were just 5,460 private sector jobs in a state of 39 million people.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of people have been leaving the state, while illegal aliens have moved in. But they are not producers – they are dependents – dependent on the government and taxpayers for support.

“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it,” economist Thomas Sowell explained. “Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on income distribution, the cold fact is that income is not distributed: It is earned.”

The Hoover Institution reported:

It is well known that California has been among the worst-performing states in the country in terms of job growth. But the latest statistics show that nearly all jobs that are being created in California are government jobs. Between January 2022 and June 2024, total California jobs grew by about 156,000, with government jobs accounting for 96.5 percent of that growth.

California’s job creation record has been even more dismal over the last 18 months. Since January 2023, private-sector employment in the state declined by over 46,000 workers. California’s private-sector job collapse is unprecedented, and with the state representing nearly 12 percent of the country’s population, it is a drag on the nation’s economy.

Part of California’s job weakness reflects the number of people and businesses leaving the state. California’s population declined by about 75,000 between 2022 and 2023 (the latest data available), and a number of business headquarters have departed.

So while Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has been gaslighting everyone falsely claiming that “California was the second most popular state for Americans to move to in 2024,” the truth is the Californians and businesses are leaving in droves.

California is losing more workers than it’s gaining, new report shows, the Globe reported Tuesday. The five US states that lost the most residents in 2023 were California(-690,502), Florida (-514,259), New York (-483,523), Texas (-480,822) and Illinois (-297,765). The states with the largest population have the most inbound and outbound migration – just by sheer numbers. But there is much more chasing Californians to other states.

Hoover explains:

Economic factors are the primary reasons behind these departures. Households are moving because of the cost of living and deficient public services. The median single-family home price is over $900,000, and the median price of a condominium or townhouse is nearly $700,000. Electricity prices are the fifth highest in the country. Gasoline prices are the second highest in the country, reflecting in part the nation’s highest gasoline taxes. With the country’s highest gas taxes, California roads should be among the best, but they are among the worst. California public schools are grossly underperforming, with only 25–30 percent of students proficient in math, language arts, or science.

Businesses are also leaving because of the state’s economic climate. The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan research center that focuses on tax policies, ranks California as having the fifth worst tax climate, eclipsed only by New York, Vermont, Connecticut, and Hawaii. Chief Executive magazine’s annual survey of the best states to do business in invariably ranks California as the least business-friendly state in the country. And California is ranked second worst among states in regulatory burdens.

As the Globe reported in October, Gavin Newsom claimed:

“It isn’t by accident that California is an economic powerhouse. Whether it be around education, infrastructure, or immigration, we’re following a formula for success,” California Governor Gavin Newsom claims in a video posted to X.

Newsom’s gaslighting would merely be sophomoric is he didn’t lust for the U.S. Presidency.

Newsom’s Formula for Success

In spite of Gavin Newsom’s leftist politics, there still are some successful businesses and industries in the state. Their success it is not because of Newsom’s or the state’s far-left Democrat politicians – and they are paying a high price for remaining in California.

There is no ignoring Chief Executive Magazine which reports annually on the Best and Worst States for Business. Predictably, in their Best and Worst of 2024, California is ranked number #50 – again… the 11th… or 12th… or 13th year in a row.

“Businesses are leaving because it is no longer economically feasible for them to stay within California,” Hoover says. “Businesses that remain in California are hiring much less, and California now has the country’s second highest unemployment rate.”

Parts of California resemble Mogadishu, contrasted with the elites who live in California’s Coastal communities – Malibu, Del Mar, La Jolla, Montecito, Laguna Beach, Big Sur, Carmel… up to San Francisco.

Gavin Newsom can gaslight all he wants in an attempt to remake his compromised image and shoddy record; Californians know – as do many in the rest of the country – this is Gavin Newsom’s California.

Remember, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the compliant Democrat Supermajority in the California Legislature closed your children’s schools, shut down your businesses, ordered your churches closed, cancelled holidays, masked your kids, mandated Covid shots to go back to work and school… while they exempted themselves from these mandates.

UPDATE:

The Hoover Institution issued an update and correction:

Data included in the article, California’s Businesses Stop Hiring, published on August 7, 2024, was incorrectly identified and interpreted by the author and the original publication has been retracted to avoid any misinformation that can be attributed to the article.

An updated article, Recent Trends in California’s Job Growth, by the author can be found here.

From the update, Hoover writes:

This update shows different job growth trends among the major Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) jobs data produced from surveys; discusses why the trends in the data may be so different and what that means for job growth; and summarizes findings from a recent analysis by California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) that compares job growth differences between private-sector industries and government- and publicly supported sectors (healthcare and social assistance). It also discusses jobs data whose measurements are more precise than in either survey, though these data are finalized only through the fourth quarter of 2023.

The jobs census data show that California was 50th in job growth in 2023, measured as 12-month percentage changes at the quarterly frequency.  

Another reason for concern is a California LAO report that studies  California job growth between 2022 and April 2024. It focuses on private-sector job growth, which is defined as jobs not in government or in industries significantly supported by the public sector (healthcare and social assistance). 

The LAO reports “broad weakness” in the industries outside those government and publicly supported sectors. They find job growth of 361,000 in the government and publicly supported category but find a loss of 154,000 jobs in all other industries between September 2022 and April 2024.