Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Walters: New State Budget Has Some Big Caveats
dan_walters
By Dan Walters, CalMatters Commentary
Published 6 years ago on
June 16, 2019

Share

California’s political leaders, Democrats all, are touting a new state budget that expands spending on services for the state’s poor while building reserves.


Dan Walters
CALmatters

That’s true, as far as it goes. However, there are some very big caveats in the $213 billion 2019-20 budget, the first by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The first caveat is that while expanding health insurance coverage (even to some undocumented adults), early childhood education, an expanded “earned income tax credit” and other services may alleviate symptoms, they ignore root causes of California’s highest-in-the-nation poverty.
The most important factor in having 20% of Californians living in poverty, according to the Census Bureau, and another 20 percent in “near-poverty,” according to the Public Policy Institute of California, is the state’s ridiculously high cost of living, especially for housing.
How high? Recent calculations by the Council for Community and Economic Research reveal that four of the 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the highest costs of living are in California, topped by San Francisco, 91.4% above the national average.
Looking at the situation from a different standpoint, California’s high cost of living depresses real personal income growth, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

California Economy’s Increasingly Precarious State

While the state’s economy was booming in 2017, and generating record amounts of taxable income for the state treasury, the BEA says in a new report, its “real personal income” growth, adjusted for cost of living, was just 2.6%, lower than all of its neighboring states. Los Angeles-Long Beach had the slowest real income growth of any large metropolitan area at just 1.6 percent.
While nearly all California living costs tend to be high, housing is particularly so, thanks to our chronic inability to keep up with demand and the Capitol’s chronic inability to reduce barriers to construction.
That brings us to the next caveat about the new budget – the increasingly precarious state of California’s economy.
“The California economy is slowing down,” Jerry Nickelsburg, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, wrote in a report this month. “The state is, quite simply, running out of people to be employed.”
In decades past, when California’s economy was booming and needed new workers, we would see an influx from elsewhere. But in-migration has slowed to a trickle and we actually have a net loss in state-to-state movements – thanks, again, to our high living costs.

Reserves Are Designed to Cushion an Economic Downturn

Late last year, economists at Cal Lutheran University issued a report on Ventura County, saying its economy is stagnant because of a lack of workers and blaming housing availability and costs for the situation. What’s true in Ventura is increasingly true of the entire state, recent data indicate.

Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, started building reserves and warned in his final budget, “What’s out there is darkness, uncertainty, decline and recession, so good luck, baby.”
The new budget plants the seeds of potentially massive “entitlements” that could backfire if recession hits. Although Newsom has characterized much of the budget’s new spending as one-time, he is raising expectations that would be politically difficult to ignore in a crunch.
Reserves are being built to cushion an economic downturn, but they fall way short of fully closing the gaps that even a moderate recession would create, which explains why the Legislature’s budget analyst recommended diverting more of current operating surpluses into reserves.
The Public Policy Institute of California, in its own look into long-term economic and fiscal trends, reminds us that “California’s current mix of revenue streams creates considerable volatility,” particularly since the budget is inordinately dependent on taxing high-income Californians whose personal incomes are extremely variable.
Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, started building reserves and warned in his final budget, “What’s out there is darkness, uncertainty, decline and recession, so good luck, baby.”
Yep.
CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters go to calmatters.org/commentary.
[activecampaign form=19]

DON'T MISS

Wired Wednesday: CEMEX’s New Mining Plan for the San Joaquin River

DON'T MISS

Trump Fires NSC Officials a Day After Far-Right Activist Raises Concerns to Him

DON'T MISS

China Halts Approvals for New US Investment Projects

DON'T MISS

Measles Spreads to Central Texas; 5 States Have Active Outbreaks

DON'T MISS

Trump Tariff Fears Erase $2 Trillion From US Stocks

DON'T MISS

Startup Offers Controversial Microplastic Blood Cleansing Treatment

DON'T MISS

Senate Confirms Mehmet Oz to Take Lead of Medicare and Medicaid Agency

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Pence Will Receive the Profile in Courage Award From the JFK Library for His Actions on Jan. 6

DON'T MISS

Politics Turns Ugly for a Conservative Running for Fresno State Student Body President

UP NEXT

Why Project Labor Agreements Are Good for Our Schools and Students: Opinion

UP NEXT

State Center Trustees Vote for Special Interest Giveaway Over Students: Opinion

UP NEXT

I Will Force Votes on Blocking Arms Sales to Israel: Sen. Bernie Sanders

UP NEXT

What Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs Could Mean for Americans: Fareed Zakaria

UP NEXT

Why the Nation Would Be Wise to Support a Third Term Amendment for Donald Trump

UP NEXT

If California Bails Out LA’s $1 Billion Budget Deficit, Beware the Slippery Slope

UP NEXT

Trump Has Had Enough. He Is Not Alone.

UP NEXT

The Real Crisis in California Schools Is Low Achievement, Not Cultural Conflicts

UP NEXT

Trump and Musk Are Suffering From Soros Derangement Syndrome

UP NEXT

CA Politicians Have an Irritating Habit of Ignoring the Downsides

Measles Spreads to Central Texas; 5 States Have Active Outbreaks

3 hours ago

Trump Tariff Fears Erase $2 Trillion From US Stocks

4 hours ago

Startup Offers Controversial Microplastic Blood Cleansing Treatment

4 hours ago

Senate Confirms Mehmet Oz to Take Lead of Medicare and Medicaid Agency

5 hours ago

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

7 hours ago

Pence Will Receive the Profile in Courage Award From the JFK Library for His Actions on Jan. 6

7 hours ago

Politics Turns Ugly for a Conservative Running for Fresno State Student Body President

7 hours ago

Pentagon’s Watchdog to Review Hegseth’s Use of Signal App to Convey Plans for Houthi Strike

7 hours ago

President Trump’s Tariffs Could Be the Political Tipping Point

8 hours ago

Order That Kept Water in the Kern River Reversed by 5th District Court of Appeal

8 hours ago

Wired Wednesday: CEMEX’s New Mining Plan for the San Joaquin River

GV Wire’s Edward Smith talks with KMPH Fox 26 “Great Day” anchor Christina Rodriguez about the possibility of CEMEX digging a 600-foot hole ...

2 hours ago

2 hours ago

Wired Wednesday: CEMEX’s New Mining Plan for the San Joaquin River

President Donald Trump speaks during an event to announce new tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP/Mark Schiefelbein)
2 hours ago

Trump Fires NSC Officials a Day After Far-Right Activist Raises Concerns to Him

3 hours ago

China Halts Approvals for New US Investment Projects

3 hours ago

Measles Spreads to Central Texas; 5 States Have Active Outbreaks

4 hours ago

Trump Tariff Fears Erase $2 Trillion From US Stocks

4 hours ago

Startup Offers Controversial Microplastic Blood Cleansing Treatment

Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, seated right, gives a thumbs-up alongside his wife Lisa Oz, seated left, with friends and family after he testified at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP/Ben Curtis)
5 hours ago

Senate Confirms Mehmet Oz to Take Lead of Medicare and Medicaid Agency

7 hours ago

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend