It’s official: The gap between the Bay Area’s haves and have-nots is wider than anywhere else in the state. Top income earners in the Bay Area make 12.2 times as much as those at the bottom of the economic ladder, according to new research from the Public Policy Institute of...
Injuries at Fresno’s Amazon Warehouse Are Triple Industry Average
Amanda Caballero wishes she could go back to work at Amazon. She made $15 an hour at the Fresno fulfillment center — several dollars more than the state’s minimum wage — and received more than three months of paid maternity leave. Her generous health insurance package covered her husband and...
'The Lion King,' 'Toy Story 4' Help Boost Disney's Profit
NEW YORK — Walt Disney Co. on Thursday reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income that beat Wall Street's expectations thanks to strong theater revenue from films like "The Lion King" and "Toy Story 4," along with higher parks revenue. The results came as Disney readies for the debut Tuesday of its...
Walters: High-Octane Ballot Measures Lining up for 2020
Gov. Gavin Newsom this week vetoed a perennial effort by his fellow Democrats to hamstring business and conservative groups’ use of statewide ballot measures. Assembly Bill 1451 would have prohibited qualifying ballot measures by paying professional circulators on a per-signature basis, but gave Democrats’ union allies a carveout. Paraphrasing former Gov....
Stockton’s Free Cash Initiative: Where Did the Money Go?
SACRAMENTO — The first data from an experiment in a California city where needy people get $500 a month from the government shows they spend most of it on things such as food, clothing and utility bills. The 18-month, privately funded program started in February and involves 125 people in...
$500 a Month for Free: Data Shows How People Spent the Money
SACRAMENTO — The first data from an experiment in a California city where needy people get $500 a month from the government shows they spend most of it on things such as food, clothing and utility bills. The 18-month, privately funded program started in February and involves 125 people in...
Housing Woes Push Into 2020 Campaign From Nevada and Beyond
LAS VEGAS — Like many, Mario Wolthers was lured to Las Vegas a decade ago from California by cheaper housing costs. But when his apartment managers tried to raise his rent last spring, he moved in with a roommate. "I'm a responsible taxpaying citizen," said Wolthers, a 38-year-old elementary school...
Walters: Is There a California Tipping Point to the Abyss?
Circa of America got its start more than a half-century ago, during San Francisco’s Hippie heyday, when Ronaldo Cianciarulo began making and selling leather belts out of his van in the city’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. During several changes of ownership and names, it continued to make belts in a factory in...
Meet California's Most Unlikely Philanthropist: 18-Year-Old Fabiola
This spring — as federal prosecutors announced charges against wealthy Californians, who paid bribes to get their kids into elite universities — a poor kid from a poor California town faced her own dilemma: How could she help others go to college? Fabiola Moreno Ruelas, an 18-year-old from the Salinas...
Walters: California’s Two-Tier Society
Thirty-four years ago, two researchers delved into California’s rapidly changing demographic and economic trends and saw “an emerging two-tier economy with Asians and better-educated non-Hispanic whites and blacks competing for the prestigious occupations while poorly educated Hispanics and blacks scramble for the lower status jobs …” The study, titled “Population...