Web Version [link removed] | Update Preferences [link removed] CBRT in the News 6 Bay Area Openings vs. 500 In LA: Here's Why There's A Discrepancy In COVID-19 Vaccine Availability

If you're having trouble booking a coronavirus vaccine appointment on the MyTurn website, it could be because at one point the Bay Area only had six appointments available, according to a bot. Meanwhile, Los Angeles had 500 open slots.

"Please try later!" or "Sorry we couldn't find any open appointments," are some of the messages Bay Area residents are getting when trying to schedule an appointment on the My Turn website.

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The state is following what they promised. Forty percent of its vaccine supply would be allocated for zip codes deemed most vulnerable, and the majority of cases are in Southern California.

"We don't believe that the key is going to be a supply problem. The key for us is going to be a distribution network," said Rob Lapsley, president of the CA Business Roundtable.

Read More [[link removed]] Capitol Weekly Podcast: The Future Of Work

Over the last four weeks Capitol Weekly presented a series of live panel discussions and presentations on Zoom, examining the topic “The Future of Work.”

The battles over the Dynamex decision, AB5 and Proposition 22 reveal an uncertain landscape for working people in California. Priced out of the nation’s most expensive housing market, some workers are choosing to leave the state. Manufacturing, once a mainstay of good-paying jobs in California, is in deep decline. Gig work is booming – but is it sustainable? And, a year-long pandemic has devastated many industries – how will they come back? What is the Future of Work – and workers – in the Golden State?

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Panel 3, March 4: The Big Picture

Rob Lapsley, California Business Roundtable; Lenny Mendonca, McKinsey & Co., Caitlin Vega, Union Made Strategies; Evan White, California Policy Lab;

Moderated by Erika Smith, Los Angeles Times

Read More [[link removed]] California's Vaccine Record Just So-So

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s belated State of the State address last week was fundamentally a self-administered pat on the back for handling the COVID-19 pandemic, refuting the “nay-sayers and dooms-dayers” who want him recalled.

Newsom’s cavalcade of accomplishments prominently featured California’s rollout of vaccinations against the deadly infection that began late last year.

“We were the first to launch mass-vaccination sites in partnership with FEMA, now a model for other states,” Newsom claimed. “Today, we have the most robust vaccination program in America. California now ranks sixth in the world for vaccine distribution, ahead of countries like Israel, Russia, Germany and France.”

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A key indicator is the state’s lagging record in administering the vaccination doses it has been allocated, according to the California Center for Jobs and the Economy, the research arm of the California Roundtable.

The California Center, using data from the Centers for Disease Control, reported that through last week, California had used slightly over 70% of its supply, well under the national figure and ninth lowest among the 50 states.

Read More [[link removed]] Business Climate and Job Creation Economy Revs Up As Americans Increase Spending On Flights, Lodging, Dining Out

Restaurant and hotel bookings are up. Airplane tickets are selling fast. Consumers spent more on gyms, salons and spas in recent weeks than they have since the coronavirus pandemic began.

The U.S. economic recovery is picking up steam as Americans increase their spending, particularly on in-person services that were battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

The rising number of Covid-19 vaccinations, falling business restrictions, ample household savings and injections of federal stimulus funds into the economy are fueling the surge, economists say.

“I’d rather travel than do almost anything,” said Betsy Cole, 81 years old, who booked a flight to Boston to see family and friends in late spring and hopes to visit the British Virgin Islands for a sailing trip later this year. She also booked two international trips for next year. She looks forward to camping in the Sahara and riding a camel in Morocco, as well as enjoying time on the water in the Greek Isles.

Read More [[link removed]] States Reopened, But Covid-19 Fears Threaten To Keep Customers Away

What if you opened the economy and nobody came?

Texas, Iowa and Mississippi were among the first states to fully reopen businesses this year, ending shutdown orders intended to curb the spread of Covid-19.

But research suggests the dormant economies won’t immediately blossom—unless consumers also lose their fear of the coronavirus.

So far, about 40 million Americans, or 12% of the population, have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 73 million, or about 22% have received at least one shot.

Read More [[link removed]] U.S. Jobless Claims Hover Near Pandemic Lows

Worker filings for jobless benefits are hovering near the pandemic’s lowest levels, adding to evidence of recent economic improvement.

Jobless claims rose last week to 770,000—still elevated above the pre-pandemic peak of 695,000—but have declined since January. The four-week moving average, which smooths out weekly volatility, fell last week to about 746,000, near November’s pandemic low.

An increase in Texas accounted for about half of last week’s overall rise in jobless claims, which could reflect delayed effects from last month’s winter storm, some economists said.

More broadly, declining jobless claims are one sign of economic improvement. U.S. employers added 379,000 jobs in February, and the unemployment rate ticked down to 6.2%. The U.S. manufacturing industry has exhibited steady signs of expansion. JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s tracker of credit- and debit-card transactions showed consumer spending climbed in early March.

Read More [[link removed]] Federal Reserve To End Emergency Capital Relief For Big Banks

The Federal Reserve said Friday it would allow a yearlong reprieve for the way big banks account for ultrasafe assets such as Treasury securities to expire as scheduled at the end of the month, a loss for Wall Street firms that had pressed for an extension to the relief.

The decision means banks will lose the temporary ability to exclude Treasurys and deposits held at the central bank from lenders’ so-called supplementary leverage ratio. The ratio measures capital—funds that banks raise from investors, earn through profits and use to absorb losses—as a percentage of loans and other assets. Without the exclusion, Treasurys and deposits count as assets.

The Fed said it would soon propose longer-term changes to the rule to address its treatment of ultrasafe assets.

“Because of recent growth in the supply of central bank reserves and the issuance of Treasury securities, the board may need to address the current design and calibration of the SLR over time to prevent strains from developing that could both constrain economic growth and undermine financial stability,” the Fed said in a statement.

Read More [[link removed]] Why Are Jobless Claims Still High? For Some, It’s The Multiple Layoffs.

Jobs are coming back. Businesses are reopening. But a year after the pandemic jolted the economy, applications for unemployment benefits remain stubbornly, shockingly high — higher on a weekly basis than at any point in any previous recession, by some measures.

And headway has stalled: Initial weekly claims under regular and emergency programs, combined, have been stuck at just above one million since last fall, and last week was no exception, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

“It goes up a little bit, it goes down, but really we haven’t seen much progress,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist for the career site Indeed. “A year into this, I’m starting to wonder, what is it going to take to fix the magnitude problem? How is this going to actually end?”

Read More [[link removed]] Inside Gavin Newsom's Fateful Decision To Lock Down California

In the late afternoon one year ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom walked around the second floor of California’s emergency command hub outside Sacramento and into an office where his inner circle of advisors had assembled.

A theater-sized screen visible on the ground floor below displayed tallies showing the toll of the coronavirus in the state, at the time just 675 confirmed cases and 16 deaths.

But his administration’s models predicted a catastrophic outcome if the virus spread unabated: More than half of the state’s population could become infected in a matter of months.

Harrowing reports of patients flocking to hospitals were streaming in from New York along with stories about Italian doctors making on-the-spot choices about which patients to treat or leave to die, dire warning signs of a worst-case scenario that could wipe out the state’s fragile public healthcare system unless Newsom took drastic action. And soon.

Read More [[link removed]] Florida Gov. DeSantis Credits Sunshine State Pandemic 'Success' To Open Economy

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis this week said his state handled the pandemic effectively, despite the criticism he took for keeping business largely open throughout the past year.

DeSantis lamented that the formula being used to administer federal funding to states is based on unemployment rates at the end of 2020, suggesting it penalizes a state like Florida that has kept business solvent and kept individuals employed.

"Those lockdowns have not worked, they’ve done great damage to our country. We can never let something like this happen again," DeSantis said during a press conference on Tuesday. "Florida took a different path – we’ve had more success as a result."

The Florida Republican added that by awarding the funds based on that formula, instead of by state population, the government is favoring states that have handled the pandemic ineffectively – like New York, California and Illinois.

Read More [[link removed]] Economic Pain May Drive Newsom Recall

While boasting about how California — and he — have handled the COVID-19 pandemic in his State of the State address this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom virtually ignored its severe economic impacts, offering only this tepid statement:

“California has the most innovation, venture capital, and small-business investment in this country. We will keep fostering every small entrepreneur — the drivers of our GDP.”

From a purely political standpoint, Newsom’s omission made perfect sense. The speech was obviously aimed at countering a pending recall campaign and one of the recall’s chief drivers is economic pain.

To counter COVID-19, Newsom ordered widespread shutdowns of businesses, particularly small service businesses such as restaurants, thus forcing layoffs of employees — as many as 2 million at one point. There’s been some recovery as restrictions were lifted or modified but California’s employment picture remains relatively grim.

Read More [[link removed]] Bay Area Has Recovered Less Than A Third Of Lost Jobs, Full Rebound Years Away

The Bay Area economy, which only a year ago was perhaps the hottest in the United States, now has such a feeble job market that it could be two years before it recuperates from COVID-inflicted ailments.

The region has recovered fewer than one-third of the jobs that employers jettisoned in March and April of last year due to government-ordered business shutdowns to battle the coronavirus.

“It is a huge jobs deficit,” said Jeffrey Michael, director of the Stockton-based Center for Business and Policy Research at the University of the Pacific. “The winter coronavirus surge wiped out the meager job gains from the fall.”

All of the Bay Area’s three major urban centers, Santa Clara County, the East Bay, and the San Francisco-San Mateo region, have failed to recover even 40% of the jobs they lost in March and April of last year, this news organization’s analysis of the latest figures from the state Employment Development Department shows.

Read More [[link removed]] Newsom Plans To 'Fight Like Hell' To Save Political Legacy

California Gov. Gavin Newsom broke his silence on the California recall with a string of national television appearances this week, pinning the effort on President Donald Trump supporters, anti-immigrant forces and conspiracy-driven opportunists.

Heading into Wednesday's signature deadline, Newsom is trying to frame California's recall as an extension of the divisive 2020 presidential fight. The Democratic governor is leaning on progressive flag-bearers Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and gearing up for an airwave blitz expected to cost well over $100 million. He's also assembling a political A-team — a mix of veteran insiders who have long guided his political trajectory and are fresh off the rough-and-tumble presidential campaign trail.

“We're gonna take this extremely seriously … we're gonna get ready — and fight like hell,’’ Newsom senior strategist Sean Clegg said. “This is a Republican recall — with a capital 'R' — and we’re going to make it that."

Read More [[link removed]] Blue Shield Spent Years Cultivating A Relationship With Newsom. It Got The State Vaccine Contract.

Gavin Newsom was just making a name for himself as mayor of San Francisco in 2005 when Blue Shield of California wrote him its first major check.

The young, business-friendly Democrat had exploded onto the national scene the year before by issuing same-sex marriage licenses in San Francisco, and he was pushing his next big idea, called Project Homeless Connect. The initiative would host bazaar-style events in neighborhoods across the city, linking homeless people to services like food assistance and health care.

Newsom needed financial support from businesses, and Blue Shield answered with a $25,000 contribution.

Over the next 16 years, as Newsom’s political career flourished, the health insurance behemoth became one of his most generous and trusted supporters. It contributed nearly $23 million to Newsom’s campaigns andspecial causes, according to a California Healthline analysis of political and charitable contributions. Of that, nearly 90% has funded the homelessness initiatives that critics and allies say are dearest to Newsom’s heart.

Read More [[link removed]] As State Attorney General Job Morphs Post-Trump, Who Will Be Newsom's Pick?

The last time a California governor chose a new attorney general, Donald Trump had just been elected president. As Democrats geared up to make California the “Resistance State,” newly appointed state attorney general Xavier Becerra quickly went to work suing the Trump administration.

He kept it up at a mind-boggling clip, filing 110 lawsuits over the next four years.

Today the attorney general who broke records suing Trump has won Senate confirmation to become secretary of Health and Human Services under by President Joe Biden. Now Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom must pick a new attorney general for a decidedly different time.

California’s next attorney general will likely turn the focus inward. The office has huge responsibilities within the state, including consumer protection, gambling and firearms regulation, internet privacy enforcement and criminal investigations.

Read More [[link removed]] Work-From-Home Helps Drive San Diego Real Estate Despite Rocky Economy

The San Diego real estate market has been a bit of a mystery over the past year, as prices continued to rise while unemployment and COVID-19 lockdowns have been in place for over a year.

Experts say at the beginning of the pandemic there was a real fear the market was going to fall, but as the months ran on those fears did not come to pass. “As soon as I got the first call, I must’ve gotten 10 calls. For the first few months of COVID, I didn’t recognize an area code, because they were all people who were looking to move to San Diego,” said Dane Soderberg, a longtime real estate broker from the La Jolla area.

Soderberg believes San Diego is fast becoming the destination for remote workers to find some space and distance from their former lives in big cities such as Boston, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. With interests rates still at record lows, inventory tight and prices rising between 8 and 14% last year, upward pressure on the market is expected.

Read More [[link removed]] Fresno Health Inspectors Tipped Off Foster Farms About State Inspection Amid Outbreak

Last December, during the biggest-known COVID-19 workplace outbreak in Fresno County, public health officials said they were investigating Foster Farms’ chicken processing plant in southeast Fresno.

But dozens of emails obtained by The Fresno Bee through a Public Records Act request show that during the outbreak at the South Cherry Avenue plant that infected hundreds, health officials tipped off company executives about a Cal/OSHA inspection, coordinated media talking points during the crisis, withheld information from the public and issued no corrective actions.

At least five people who worked at the South Cherry Avenue plant have died in connection to the virus, according to data provided by the company and Cal/OSHA. At least 22 people who worked at Foster Farms’ Fresno facilities have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 related complications to date.

Fresno County Public Health officials defended their relationships with local businesses, saying their role is to be “the eyes and ears” of the community and to help companies curb the spread of the virus. Regulation is left to more powerful agencies, like Cal/OSHA.

Read More [[link removed]] Are California Recall Leaders Tied To Far-Right Militias And QAnon? We Fact-Checked Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Claims.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom attacked the leaders of the recall campaign against him in a national TV blitz this week, alleging they’re anti-immigrant, connected to far right militias and embrace QAnon conspiracy theories.

The Democratic governor’s high-profile push back was his most forceful yet against the effort to remove him from office. It took place the same week organizers announced they had gathered more than two million signatures to qualify the recall for the ballot. Wednesday was the deadline to sign recall petitions, which must be verified by county election officials.

Newsom acknowledged the campaign has likely secured the 1.5 million valid signatures needed to hold a recall election later this year.

Newsom’s attacks over the airwaves were part of a larger effort this week by the governor and his Democratic allies in Congress and across the state to defend him and paint the leaders of the recall as extreme.

Read More [[link removed]] Energy and Climate Change Here's Why Your Electricity Prices Are High And Soaring

California’s electricity prices are among the highest in the country, new research says, and those costs are falling disproportionately on a customer base that’s already struggling to pay their bills.

PG&E customers pay about 80% more per kilowatt-hour than the national average, according to a study by the energy institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School with the nonprofit think tank Next 10. The study analyzed the rates of the state’s three largest investor-owned utilities and found that Southern California Edison charged 45% more than the national average, while San Diego Gas & Electric charged double. Even low-income residents enrolled in the California Alternate Rates for Energy program paid more than the average American.

“California’s retail prices are out of line with utilities across the country,” said UC Berkeley assistant professor and study co-author Meredith Fowlie, citing Hawaii and some New England states among the outliers with even higher rates. “And they’re increasing.”

Read More [[link removed]] California Rates A Grade Of 'C' On Climate Action

2020 was a year that will be remembered for generations to come. Our lives were turned upside down by a pandemic. Our country was faced with a racial reckoning on the killing of Black Americans by police. More Californians voted than ever before. And, we sent one of our own – the first Black, South Asian woman and a Californian – to the White House.

2020 was also the start of a critical decade for our state, our country and the world. Scientists tell us that we only have until 2030 to stop the most severe impacts of the climate crisis. Less than nine years out from this deadline, we are already experiencing a changing climate. Longer, more intense fire seasons. Extreme heat. Floods. Increased pollution and public health threats.

Each year, we look at our progress toward this benchmark. We ask ourselves – is our state doing enough to fight the climate crisis and create a more just future?

Read More [[link removed]] A U.S. Economy-Wide Methane Target: Essential, Achievable, Affordable

The Biden administration is preparing to announce a new U.S. greenhouse gas emissions target for 2030 under the Paris Agreement — a pledge known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC — in advance of this year’s United Nations climate talks. Given the last four years of U.S. climate inaction and denial, it is important that the U.S. put forward an ambitious yet credible target and restore its position as a global leader on climate.

Although many countries pledge a single headline target that includes all greenhouse gas emissions, we believe that a complementary methane target is an essential addition that will considerably benefit the climate. Although it would include methane, a combined target is not sufficient to ensure that immediate and strong actions are taken to reduce methane emissions at the extent warranted.

A combined target is not sufficient because:

Methane plays a major role in the rate of warming that is not adequately accounted for in the internationally agreed-upon metrics for greenhouse gas reporting (GWP100), such that only adhering to a combined target will undervalue the amount of methane that should be reduced to slow down warming; and

Read More [[link removed]] New Markets Emerge For Carbon Accounting Businesses As Cities Like LA Push Proposals

Earlier this month, Los Angeles became the latest city to task its various departments with prepping a feasibility study for deploying new software and monitoring technologies to better account for its carbon footprint.

LA's city council initiative, led by Council member Paul Koretz, follows a push from the state legislature to mandate that all businesses operating in California that gross over $1billion annually disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and set science-based targets to reduce those emissions.

California is far from the only state in the U.S. that's feeling the disastrous effects of global climate change, but it's among the most aggressive in trying to address the causes. Whether that's a dramatic effort to remove fossil fuels from its power supply or the proposal to make businesses accountable for their contributions to climate change, California has been a leader in trying to encourage the adoption of new technology and services that can mitigate the impact of climate change and reverse course on the production of greenhouse gas emissions.

Read More [[link removed]] A Texas-Size Failure, Followed By A Familiar Texas Response: Blame California

It was tough enough for fossil fuel boosters in Texas to endure the spectacular failure of their state’s power grid, and with it all their claims of energy superiority over rival California.

But now Congress is delivering a fresh indignity to the Lone Star State: The House Oversight Committee investigation into its power failures is being led by a Silicon Valley Democrat.

There may be nobody in Congress who more personifies the California ethos Texas Republicans so loathe than Rep. Ro Khanna of Fremont, a wonky green energy champion, ally of West Coast innovators and regular on MSNBC.

“He is at the center of California’s progressive engine moving toward this alternative energy future,” said Kenneth Miller, a Claremont McKenna government professor and author of “Texas vs. California: A History of Their Struggle for the Future of America.” “To have at the national level this progressive Democrat from the belly of the beast — the Bay Area — leading an investigation of what happened in Texas is I am sure quite galling for some Texans.”

Read More [[link removed]] MicroClimates: PG&E Is Changing How Your Electricity Bill Works - Here's Everything You Need To Know

Welcome to MicroClimates, The Chronicle’s local climate change newsletter. If someone forwarded you this email, you can sign up here.

Changing when we use the most electricity

You may have heard an ad on the radio, a billboard along the highway or seen a notice in your bill: Over the course of the next year, PG&E and other utilities across California are moving customers to a new kind of rate plan for their electricity bills. For today’s MicroClimates, we’re taking a deeper look at what these changes mean for your electricity bill and what it has to do with climate change.

What’s a time-of-use rate?

For most California residents right now, the cost of electricity is the same throughout the day, no matter if you’re using it 2 a.m. or 6 p.m. Time-of-use rate plans increase the cost of electricity during the time period of highest demand, and when it’s most expensive to provide it — usually in the late afternoon and evening.

Read More [[link removed]] The Economics Of Covering California's Water System With Solar Panels

A major factor driving the growth of solar power in the US has been the economics of large, utility-scale solar projects. The scale of plants ensures that their developers can buy components in bulk, use larger, more robust hardware, and install everything efficiently. That's in major contrast to most distributed installations, like rooftop solar.

But these installations do come with downsides. They often occur on undeveloped land, which can offset some of their positive contributions to climate change, especially if the land that has to be cleared was sequestering carbon. Ideally, it would be better to find a way to mix the best features of both—use previously developed sites, but on a scale that puts them on par with dedicated installations.

One of the solutions that has been floated (pun intended) is to put the panels on reservoirs. Reservoirs are large and already developed, and there's a side benefit of floating the panels onto the water: it cuts down on evaporation, potentially enhancing the value of the reservoir. Now, researchers have examined an alternative: covering all of California's open-air aqueducts, which supply one of the most productive agricultural regions on the planet, with photovoltaics.

Read More [[link removed]] The Race Is On To Strike 'White Gold' At California's Salton Sea

There are few places in California, maybe anywhere, weirder or more wonderful than the Salton Sea.

It’s a sparkling blue oasis in the state’s southeastern corner, framed by harsh desert, jutting mountains and seemingly endless green farm fields. Its modern incarnation was created more than 100 years ago, when the swelling waters of the Colorado River overran an agricultural canal. Now it’s drying up, spewing harmful dust into the Imperial Valley’s already badly polluted air.

There are countless stories to be told around the Salton Sea. To me, one of the most fascinating is about lithium.

Sometimes known as “white gold,” this tiny chemical element — it’s the lightest metal on the periodic table — is a key ingredient in the lithium-ion batteries so important for storing solar and wind energy, powering electric cars and keeping our cellphones fully charged. And there’s loads of it dissolved in the underground brine deep beneath the southern end of the Salton Sea.

Read More [[link removed]] Infrastructure and Housing Small Landlords Left Struggling When Renters Stop Paying

At the start of the pandemic, Brandon McCall’s two tenants ran into financial trouble. One had surgery, and went on disability, which tightened his purse strings. The other, who works in entertainment, was laid off almost immediately, and wasn’t eligible for unemployment as a contract worker. With a limited amount of cash coming in, McCall said the two of them stopped paying rent on his Van Nuys condo in Los Angeles.

McCall looked into mortgage forbearance, but decided to pass when he learned it would impact his credit. He would also have to pay in full after his deferral period was up. Unsure when the tenants would start paying again, McCall and his wife dipped into savings to cover the mortgage on their condo even as they rent elsewhere for work.

“Landlords rights and tenants rights are the same thing,” McCall said. “They’re often pitted against each other, but they’re the same thing. … I want to stay housed. I want to keep my tenants housed. We’re all in this together.”

Read More [[link removed]] AG Becerra Intervenes In San Diego County Housing Development Case Over Wildfire Concerns

On Wednesday, outgoing California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed motions in the lawsuits over San Diego County’s approval over the 36 square mile Otay Ranch development site.

The Otay Ranch development, which would add over 3,000 single family residential units, as well as commercial spaces, parks, resort areas, and civic buildings such as fire stations, has drawn controversy over being in a high wildfire risk area. Since the beginning of the century, multiple wildfires have erupted in and around the site, including the 2007 Harris Fire that burned over 90,000 acres.

Due to the high wildfire risk and San Diego County’s quick approval of the Otay Ranch projects plan, Becerra backed the lawsuit by noting that the environmental impact reports (EIRs) approved by the County don’t adequately cover what the wildfire risk would actually be in a newly developed area with thousands of people. Becerra specifically cites 2018 updates to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), with the County’s failure to mitigate and address higher risks being in violation of the Act.

Read More [[link removed]] Together, The Coachella Valley Is Ready To Solve Our Affordable Housing Challenge

An affordable housing crisis has long afflicted the Coachella Valley. Even before the pandemic devastated our local economy, more than a third of renters spent more than half their income keeping a roof over their heads.

Units in the western Coachella Valley can be cost prohibitive, meaning the rent is out of reach of working families. On the eastern side, the lack of adequate water and sewage infrastructure limits development or forces families to live in mobile home parks that too often have inhumane conditions.

Now, many families who depended on our thriving tourism economy are without work. People of color and families with children have been hit the hardest: rental assistance applicants disproportionately identify as Hispanic/Latino, female heads of household, or parents of children under 5 years old.

Read More [[link removed]] Homelessness Rises Prior To The Pandemic

For the fourth consecutive year, homelessness increased nationwide, with approximately 580,000 people living in shelters, transitional housing, or on the street in 2020, reported the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Between 2019 and 2020, the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by 2%. It’s also notable that the number of unsheltered individuals increased by 7% while the number of sheltered individuals remained largely unchanged.

“What makes these findings even more devastating is that they are based on data from before COVID-19, and we know the pandemic has only made the homelessness crisis worse,” said HUD secretary Marcia Fudge, who took office last week, in a video statement.

Read More [[link removed]] Homelessness Rising In Los Angeles Amid Record Number Of People Rehoused, Agency Says

he Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority is rehousing more people than ever, but that doesn't keep up with the number of people becoming homeless every day, Executive Director Heidi Marston said Thursday.

"I do know that it's hard to reconcile, how is it that we're ending homelessness for more people than ever compared to what we see on the street,'' Marston said.

"The challenge we have to remember is that every day on average 207 people make their way back into housing either with our help or on their own, and at the same time, 227 people are pushed into homelessness every day.''

About 568,000 people in the United States are experiencing homelessness, with 151,000 in California, 66,436 in Los Angeles County and 41,290 in Los Angeles, according to LAHSA's homelessness count last year. This year's count was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read More [[link removed]] Editorial and Opinion The Tax Cut Ban And The Constitution

Democrats didn’t flip a single state legislative chamber or governor’s mansion in the 2020 election, while Republicans flipped three. Yet through their Covid bill Democrats are trying to partially nullify these election results by mandating that state governments cannot pass tax cuts as a condition of receiving aid. Ohio on Wednesday sued the Treasury to enjoin the mandate, and the case is an early test of progressive ambitions to upset the constitutional balance.

The $1.9 trillion bill marketed as Covid relief includes $350 billion in federal aid to states and localities. While states can use the money to increase spending, Congress decreed that they can’t use it to cut taxes. “A state or territory shall not use the funds,” the bill says, “to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue” from a new law or regulation.

Because the mandate applies to “indirect” revenue offsets, states are at risk of violating the law for any tax reduction “during the covered period,” which stretches through 2024. Ohio’s lawsuit by Attorney General Dave Yost argues that “this coercive offer of federal funds violates the Constitution.”

Read More [[link removed]] Pandemic Forces Us To Reimagine Future Of Work

Our nation is at a crossroads — not only as we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, but also as we enter a complex future defined by continued technological developments, evolving globalization, demographic shifts, racial inequity and climate change.

At the center of these trends is the fate of working people, who were struggling long before the pandemic and who can’t afford a return to the status quo.

This moment represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the trajectory of work in the United States to ensure that the average worker can benefit, not be left behind. We must create a new social compact for work and workers that commits all stakeholders, including workers, employers, government, and other institutions, to values of equity and inclusion and bold goals including ensuring quality jobs, eliminating working poverty, and equipping all workers with the skills and supports to fully participate in the economy now and into the future.

Read More [[link removed]] It's Time For Businesses To Support Workers They Way We Support Them

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Future of Work Commission Report lays out the case for a shift in our social compact in California.

Our state has generated unprecedented economic growth over the past 50 years. Conservative voices have long advocated that economic growth is the best tool for eliminating poverty and bringing prosperity to all.

Yet, over this time of unprecedented growth, poverty has grown substantially and the quality of our schools and infrastructure has declined. Economic growth is not enough. For prosperity to be shared we need a strong safety net, job training and policies, such as empowering workers, to promote quality jobs.

California has a long-standing “bad for business” reputation. Since my childhood, I have heard threats that businesses will flee the state if we don’t cater to their needs.

My first political memory was the passing of Proposition 13. This was a moment of transition in California, from a state that invested in infrastructure and education to one that decided that government was bad and should be reduced. Services were cut and privatized.

Read More [[link removed]] Raising the Minimum Wage Will Definitely Cost Jobs

A recent Congressional Budget Office report estimated that 1.4 million jobs would be lost if a new $15 federal minimum wage is signed into law. Advocates were quick to dismiss the CBO’s conclusion. “It is not a stretch to say that a new consensus has emerged among economists that minimum wage increases have raised wages without substantial job loss,” said Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, which has also circulated a letter signed by economics Nobel laureates and others making the same claim.

As I show in a recent extensive survey of research on minimum wages and job loss in the U.S., this is simply not true. Most studies find that a minimum wage reduces employment of low-skilled workers, especially the lowest earners most directly affected by raising the minimum wage.

There are conflicting individual studies of the effects of minimum wages on employment. That there is disagreement shouldn’t be surprising. Economics is a social science, not a natural one. Studies of minimum wages and job loss are not laboratory experiments. They can’t be replicated and so can’t be expected to yield exactly the same results.

Read More [[link removed]] The Pension Bailouts Begin

Democrats left no liberal interest group behind in their $1.9 trillion spending bill this month. That includes private unions whose ailing multi-employer pension plans will get an $86 billion rescue. This is the first of many such air-drops to come.

It was perhaps inevitable that Congress would bail out multi-employer pensions for the Teamsters and other private unions after doing so for coal miners in 2019. But the Democrats’ spending bill does nothing to fix the structural problems that have made these union pensions funds so sick.

Multi-employer pension funds became common after World War II in industries like trucking, construction, manufacturing and retail. They allow employers with a common union to join together and offer collective pension plans. Labor and management collectively bargain benefits and contributions as well as jointly administer the plans.

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