The bigger picture is that Texas has become more economically competitive while California has become less so, particularly for energy- and labor-intensive industries. Let us count the ways.
Start with right-to-work laws in southern states that have limited unionization and thus labor costs. Just 4.8% of workers in Texas and 6.1% in Tennessee belong to a union compared to 16.4% in California. Real estate is also cheaper in the South due to less restrictive zoning and environmental regulations, and taxes are lower.
According to the Tax Foundation, the state-local tax burden is more than 50% higher in California than in Tennessee and Texas, which don't levy a personal income tax.
California's top 13.3% marginal rate is the highest in the country.
Electricity prices are also about 50% higher in California than in the South due to the Golden State's renewable-energy mandate, and
its gas is 70 to 80 cents per gallon more expensive because of taxes and blending requirements.
The hostility to fossil fuels has cut California's oil production in half from its 1985 peak while output in Texas has doubled in three years and lifted incomes. The Bureau of Economic Analysis has ranked Midland the country's fastest growing metropolitan area in personal income for the past three years. Nearby Odessa was second for the last two. Between 2008 and 2012, personal income grew 8.05% in Midland and 6.98% in Odessa compared to 4.48% in San Jose and 1.81% in Los Angeles.
In March, the unemployment rate was 3.2% in Odessa versus 6.8% in San Jose and 9.7% in L.A.
No city epitomizes California's malaise better than Los Angeles, which hasn't recovered its mojo since the post-Cold War aerospace wind-down.
Since 1990 its employment base has declined by 3.1%, which is more than even Detroit (-2.8%). Job growth in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio exceeded 50% over the same period.
According to a report last year by the Los Angeles 2020 Commission, led by such Democratic grandees as Mickey Kantor, Gray Davis and Hilda Solis,
Los Angeles added one million new residents between 1980 and 2010 but lost 165,000 jobs. L.A.'s poverty rate of 17.6% is higher than any other major American city. The city has developed a "barbell" economy "typical of developing world cities, like São Paulo,"
the report notes, with "growth at the top of the income ladder and at the bottom, while the middle class shrinks year after year."
Mr. Brown, promoting his re-election tour, doesn't seem all that concerned that California's middle-class jobs engines are fleeing. "We've got a few problems, we have lots of little burdens and regulations and taxes," the Governor said on Monday, "but smart people figure out how to make it."
California's problem is that smart people have figured out they can make it better elsewhere.
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