Posted on September 18th, 2005 — in Economy and Business :: Polls and Surveys
Some of the objective signs about the California economy are pretty good, but that’s not how people are feeling. The Field Poll finds that twice as many people say the state is experiencing bad times as good. Women are grumpier than men, and poor people are feeling the pinch more than rich ones. Does this mean people are hungry for change and could be convinced to vote for what the governor says is a package of reforms? Or will they blame him for what they perceive as hard times and take out their anger by killing off his initiatives?
The Field Poll: Californians Becoming More Pessimistic of the State’s Economy
Posted on September 17th, 2005 — in Politics
How to inspire greater confidence in American elections? We could expel Florida from the union, but the Commission on Federal Election Reform offers less dramatic proposals, including some that have particular relevance for California and other western states. The Commission wants news organizations to refrain from projecting presidential election results until the polls close on the West Coast (something that was largely done in 2004), and it urges the creation of four regional presidential primaries. Presumably, that would diminish the influence of places like Iowa and New Hampshire, and increase the importance of California, which after all is home to one of every eight Americans.
Building Confidence in U.S. Elections
Posted on September 16th, 2005 — in Economy and Business
The burst of the tech bubble has cost California one of its superlatives among American states. Texas is now the top U.S. exporter. The Bay Area Economic Forum reports that from 2000 to 2003, California exports plummeted 24 percent, compared to six percent for the country as a whole. In the computer and electronics sector, California exports dropped 40 percent. As a result, Texas zoomed into first place.
International Trade and the Bay Area Economy
Posted on September 16th, 2005 — in Health Care :: Politics
A new survey finds that most legislators and county supervisors in California want to make health care more available for children, but there’s far less agreement on how it should be done. Slightly more than half oppose requiring employers to provide coverage for their employee’s dependents, and there’s a big split when officials are asked whether the state should provide public health insurance coverage to poor kids “regardless of immigration status.” The study was done by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute and USC.
Survey of California’s Elected Officials Back Effort to Increase Health Care Coverage for California’s Kids
Posted on September 15th, 2005 — in Children and Families
Yet another disadvantage to growing up poor: You are more likely to drink more soda, which in turns mean that you are more likely to endure a series of other hardships such as obesity, disease and tooth decay. This from a new brief by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. Not surprisingly, consumption increases if the stuff is available in school vending machines. Cigarette machines were once common and are now almost non-existent. Can the same thing be done for soda machines?
Health Policy Research Brief: More California Teens Consume Soda and Fast Food Each Day Than Five Servings of Fruits and Vegetables
Posted on September 14th, 2005 — in Politics :: Polls and Surveys
The new Field Poll on attitudes about abortion is getting a lot of attention in connection with the John Roberts hearings. But it also shows that the Supreme Court is increasingly unpopular in California. When asked about their confidence in the high court, the percentage of people who say they have “a lot” has fallen from 32 to 24 in the last eight years. “Not much” confidence has gone up from 16 to 26 percent. Is this the natural result when a Democratic-leaning state looks at a court led by Republican appointees, or has Bush v. Gore come back to bite the justices on the back of the robe?
Field Poll: Californians Long-Standing Pro-Choice Position on Abortion Remains
Posted on September 13th, 2005 — in Social Policy
Over the last couple of decades, prison construction has been a boom industry in California, but the State Auditor reports that a key component in deciding how many prisons to build — projecting how many people we will need to put in them — may be flawed. The report says inmate projections by the Department of Corrections are accurate for the first two years, but by the last year of the six-year projection period the average error rate is almost 30 percent. The department uses flawed statistical methods for estimating how many people will need to be locked up, the report says. No word on whether they are taking into account the Robert Downey Jr. factor.
Department of Corrections: It Needs to Better Ensure Against Conflicts of Interest and to Improve Its Inmate Population Projections
Posted on September 12th, 2005 — in Demographics :: Polls and Surveys
How many Californians lie awake at night worrying about illegal immigration? About half say they are “extremely concerned.” Old white people are the most bothered. More than half of non-Hispanic whites are deeply troubled, fewer than half of blacks and about one in three Latinos. Break the numbers down by age, and it’s a stairstep climb up the demographic ladder — young people don’t mind as much, middle-age Baby Boomers a little more, Social Security recipients are fretting. Also, vigilantism is unpopular. All this in a new Field Poll.
Field Poll: Voters Concerned About Illegal Immigration
Posted on September 11th, 2005 — in Demographics :: Education
It may sound like an old Pete Wilson immigrant-bashing commercial, but people from other countries really do “just keep coming” to California. More than half of all California youngsters age 13 to 24 have a foreign-born parent. The Public Policy Institute of California looks at whether the American Dream is working for those families: Are succeeding generations doing better than past ones? The good news is that when it comes to educational attainment — a marker for all sorts of other boons in life — the answer is yes, they are. The bad news is that although children and grandchildren of immigrants are getting more education, they still are not getting a great deal, especially among Mexican Americans. Even by the third generation only 11 percent of Mexican American adults have a bachelor’s degree.
Educational Progress Across Immigrant Generations in California
Posted on September 10th, 2005 — in Economy and Business
What does it take to be middle class? In California, it’s really quite easy. You just need a few million dollars for the down payment on a starter home. Researchers at Demos have developed some measurements for the definition of “middle class,” and some ideas about how to put more people into what should be a great, bulging belly right in the mid-section of our economic physique. Two particularly interesting ideas: Make the mortgage interest deduction refundable for families making less than $50,000, and provide each newborn with $6,000 at birth so that they can have access to some wealth later in life.
Measuring the Middle: Assessing What It Takes To Be Middle Class