Iowa, Psychology, and Arithmetic
The Iowa story is about psychology, not arithmetic. Iowa sends 44 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention, 30 to the Republican National Convention. In each case, the state accounts for only about one percent of the total number of delegates. About 171,000 Democrats and 180,000 Republicans took part in the caucuses. Although news stories are talking about high […]
Budget As One-Night Stand
The three core functions of a state are, famously, educate, medicate and incarcerate. And they should be long-term and ongoing. Educating a person, kindergarten through college, takes 17 years. Medicate – and making people healthy – should be a life-long commitment. And incarcerate is not an overnight affair. But in California’s Brown Era, our budgets […]
The Latest on the Growth of Part-Time Employment in California
Over the past few years, a main storyline in California employment has been the shift from full-time employment with expectations of stability to employment that is contingent (for limited period or project-based), or independent-contracting, or part-time (particularly part-time without benefits), or a combination of these elements. Part-time employment growth has been the easiest to track, […]
The Politics Of The Next Recession: How A Bust Could Impact The 2016 Elections
In this hyper-political age, perceptions about virtually everything from the weather to the Academy Awards are shaped by ideology. No surprise then that views on the economy and its trajectory also divide to a certain extent along partisan lines. How the public perceives the economy will have a major impact on this year’s elections. That […]
School Districts Begin Reporting Pension Debt
The latest financial statements of the state’s fifth largest school district, Elk Grove Unified, list a pension debt of $414.6 million, up from no pension debt in the statement for the previous year. How did the debt go from zero to hundreds of millions in a year? As you might guess, it didn’t. The change […]