California Businesses and Jobs Still On the Run

California Commentary: Almost half a million fewer jobs were created than expected in the U.S. economy, totaling only 235,000 jobs added compared to the 720,000 expected.

“Terrible news,” “big miss,” “major jobs disappointment ,” “abysmal,” “awful,” “miniscule ,” “massive slowdown,” “worst case scenario for economists” … those are just a few of the ways experts are describing Biden’s huge miss in the August jobs report.

This major slump in job creation is not just a national issue. California’s post-pandemic job growth is the ninth slowest in the nation and the business climate has grown increasingly hostile to entrepreneurs.

Republican lawmakers in California have repeatedly worked to stave off the rising taxes and fees imposed by Democrats, but the majority of liberal legislators impose excessive real estate taxes while ignoring the financial toll it takes on businesses.

A Stanford study reviewed the process for opening a business in California and found that it took 285 days to obtain a building permit in LA as opposed to 60 days in Texas. Governor Newsom has done little to make it easier for businesses to get started in California and while many states around the nation are lowering taxes and creating business incentives, California continues to increase fees and regulations.

In the past three years, hundreds of California companies have relocated to more business-friendly states. A recent study from Standford’s Hoover Institute reports that high startup costs and unaffordable business space are largely to blame for California’s continued business departures.

The skyrocketing costs have impacts on small and large businesses and have forced some of California’s most influential players to flee, as recorded by the California Policy Center in their Book of Exoduses.

Hewlett Packard, Oracle and other tech giants, including Elon Musk’s Tesla, are leaving for Texas, which comes as no surprise.

It’s not just exorbitant taxes and obscure regulations that have been forcing California companies from the state. The American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF) writes that California’s civil court system and employee lawsuits make the state one of the worst legal “hellholes” to do business in. This level of lawsuit litigation results in $11.6 billion in direct costs and a loss of almost 200,000 jobs annually.

Governor Newsom rejected the idea of an unfavorable business climate in the state by pointing out that Initial Public Offerings (IPO) have yielded lots of “new billionaires” and noted that the richest Californians are doing just fine.

As any California native will attest, the richest in the state have never had a problem getting by. The ones hardest hit are single working parents, middle class families and recent college grads. These people are forced to hold two or more jobs just to afford the cost of living and are notoriously overlooked by national and statewide policies.

If Biden and Newsom want to learn how to create jobs, they must look to Republican-led states. Based on the latest data, 16 of the top 20 states for recovering jobs from the pandemic are led by Republican Governors.

Without immediate action, the Democrat majority will continue to run businesses and jobs out of the state. It’s time to take back California, and voters can do just that on September 14. Californians can take control of their families’ future by recalling Gavin Newsom and replacing him with a governor that will put the economic well-being of everyone, not just the rich few, first.