03/19/2024

News

It All Adds Up, The Cost of Housing Development Fees in Seven California Cities

Development fees—which cities levy to pay for services needed to build new housing or to offset the impacts of growth on the community—make up a significant portion of the cost to build new housing in California cities. On average, these fees continue to rise, while nationally fees have decreased. As the supply of housing in […]

Read More

Pacific Research Institute Survey, Why California’s Most Coveted Industries Aren’t Coming to the Golden State

Business executives, including those in clean tech, R&D, manufacturing, and other industries highly coveted by California public officials, say the high costs of housing and real estate, poor quality education system, and expensive costs to do business are among the primary reasons why they are not locating or expanding in the Golden State. These are […]

Research & Studies
Read More

The impact of federal tax reform on state corporate income taxes

Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) heralded the most significant changes to our federal tax system in over thirty years, affecting both individual and corporate income taxes. The corporate tax changes to a large degree reflected a realization that our federal corporate income tax system was in need of fundamental reform. Our combined federal and […]

Research & Studies
Read More

LAEDC’s Economic Forecast 2018-2019

In 2017, California’s economy grew at an estimated rate of 2.5 percent, faster than the nation as a whole, which grew at 2.4 percent. While impressive, California’s economy continued to slow down from the 3.3 percent year-over year growth achieved in 2016, and from the over 4 percent year-over-year percentage growth seen in 2014 and […]

Research & Studies
Read More

Small Business Policy Index 2018: Ranking the States on Policy Measures and Costs Impacting Small Business and Entrpreneurship

SBE Council President and CEO Karen Kerrigan said: “Fortunately for entrepreneurs and small businesses, the policy environment in terms of taxes and regulations has improved at the federal level over the past year. There is a concerted effort and real action to reduce tax and regulatory burdens on small businesses and entrepreneurs, which has improved […]

Research & Studies
Read More

Getting it Right: Examining the Local Land Use Entitlement Process in California to Inform Policy and Process

We found that these local governments are imposing discretionary review processes on all residential development projects of five or more units within their borders. That means even if these developments comply with the underlying zoning code, they require additional scrutiny from the local government before obtaining a building permit. This triggers CEQA review of these […]

Research & Studies
Read More

Costly Subsidies For the Rich: Quantifying the Subsidies Offered to Battery Electric Powered Cars

There are also distributional impacts from these EV subsidies. IRS Statistics of Income data illustrate that, for the 2014 tax year, 78.7 percent ($207.1 million) of the federal consumer tax credits were received by households with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $100,000 or above. A further 20.5 percent of the tax credits ($54.1 million) […]

Research & Studies
Read More

Digital Media & Entertainment Industry

Center for a Competitive Workforce (CCW), of which LAEDC is a partner, has published a new report analyzing the Entertainment & Digital Media Industry in the Los Angeles Basin. The report is the first to define the rapidly growing “Digital Media” industry and its occupations in Los Angeles, and it analyzes the overlap with the […]

Research & Studies
Read More

Money and Freedom: The Impact of California’s School Finance Reform

In this study, researchers Rucker C. Johnson, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, and LPI Senior Researcher Sean Tanner found LCFF-induced increases in district revenue has a “strongly significant” impact on average high school graduation rates for all students in the state. For example, a […]

Research & Studies
Read More

National Solar Jobs Census 2017

The latest Solar Jobs Census found that 250,271 Americans work in solar as of 2017. This is a 3.8% decline, or about 9,800 fewer jobs, since 2016, marking the first time that jobs have decreased since the first Solar Jobs Census was released in 2010. At the same time, the long-term trend continues to show […]

Research & Studies
Read More

Cap-and-Trade Extension: Issues for Legislative Oversight

In July 2017, the Legislature passed AB 398, extending the state’s cap‑and‑trade program through 2030. The program is one of the state’s key strategies intended to ensure GHG emissions are 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Cap‑and‑trade is a complex program that requires many different design decisions that could affect both emissions and costs to businesses and households. In this report, we identify key CARB implementation decisions and major trade‑offs associated with those decisions. We also identify potential opportunities to improve Legislative oversight and future policy decisions to ensure that the administration is implementing the program in a way that is consistent with legislative intent and priorities.

Research & Studies
Read More

Workers’ Compensation Insurance, The State Needs to Strengthen Its Efforts to Reduce Fraud

Despite the State’s efforts, we identified certain weaknesses in its processes for detecting workers’ compensation fraud. For example, although state law requires insurers to refer to CDI and district attorneys’ offices any claims that show reasonable evidence of fraud, insurers vary significantly in the number of fraud referrals they submit. We calculated the referral rates for 21 insurers that each had more than $150 million in earned workers’ compensation premiums for 2015 and 2016.

Research & Studies
Read More

Tax Watch

California lawmakers have proposed more taxes and fees in the first half of the 2017-18 legislative session than in all of 2015 or 2016. If each proposal became law, the tax burden in California would increase by more than $373 billion per year. To put this in context, all revenue in the 2017-18 State Budget is expected to bring in $178.4 billion.

Research & Studies
Read More

Pension Math: Public Pension Spending and Service Crowd Out in California, 2003 – 2030

This Working Paper focuses on this challenge through multiple case studies, covering both state and local governments. The case studies demonstrate a marked increase in both employer pension contributions and unfunded pension liabilities over the past 15 years, and they reveal that in almost all cases that costs will continue to increase at least through 2030, even under the assumptions used by the plans’ governing bodies—assumptions that critics regard as optimistic. It examines the impacts of increased pension contributions on other expenditures, including services traditionally considered part of government’s core mission. Pension costs have crowded out and will likely to continue to crowd out resources needed for public assistance, welfare, recreation and libraries, health, public works, other social services, and in some cases, public safety.

Research & Studies
Read More

Crime in California 2016

Crime in California, 2016 presents an overview of the criminal justice system in California. Current year statistics are presented for reported crimes, arrests, dispositions of adult felony arrests, adult probation, criminal justice personnel, citizens’ complaints against peace officers, domestic violence- related calls for assistance, and law enforcement officers killed or assaulted. In addition, statistics for preceding years are provided for historical context.

Research & Studies
Read More