My New America Part Two: Jobs and the Economy

Jobs and the Economy in My New America is one of the topics tackled in the latest PalacioMagazine.com project with the Political Science classes of Professor Som Chounlamountry at California State University, Long Beach. This is the third partnership with the Professor and his students.

In My New America, we wanted to discover as many voices surrounding three important issues: Health Care and the Affordable Care Act, Jobs and the Economy, and Immigration. Eighteen students across three classes participated in the three-month long project. The students were tasked with writing an essay about the topic and conducting interviews. A fourth team produced a series of mini-podcast on each of the topics.

The Jobs and Economy Team Podcast

The Jobs and Economy team leader, Peter Duran, sat down with the Podcast team, Mark Morettini and Kyari Cail, for a debrief on the project.

Kyari Cail

Peter Duran

Mark Morettini

Team Essay on Jobs and the Economy

(This is the team’s essay. It has been edited and updated to reflect the announcement of May 2017 unemployment numbers)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the May 2017 unemployment numbers on June 2. Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 138,000 in May. According to the New York Times, economists had expected a gain of about 185,000. The unemployment rate was little changed at 4.3 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

In January 2017, when President Obama left office the unemployment rate was at 4.7% (1. BLS). The current Trump administration has claimed several times that the unemployment numbers under President Obama were being manipulated. They have stated that the unemployment rate was actually in the upper forty percent margin (2. FactCheck.org). When the numbers for the first full month under President Trump were released in March, Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the unemployment numbers issue. According to FactCheck.org, Spicer is quoted as saying, “Yeah, I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly — ‘They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now’” (3. FactCheck.org). The Trump administration has taken credit for jobs created since his inauguration. Fact checks from various media organizations like Fortune Magazine, NBC News, and CNN Money provides some skeptical context.

The most recent (April 2017) California unemployment number is 4.8%. According to the California Employment Department, the top three industry clusters for total projected job openings are Hospitality and Tourism, Retail, and Health Care Services (4. CA.gov).

Jobs and the Economy and Education

You can’t talk about jobs and the economy without talking about education. Preparing youth for the jobs of the present and future begins with education. In the latest proposed revised budget for California, Governor Jerry Brown calls for increasing money for K-12 schools. Funding is expected to grow to $74.6 billion in 2017‑18—an increase of $1.1 billion since January and $27.3 billion over six years (58 percent). In his budget message for the revised budget, Governor Brown calls for funding levels for K‑14 schools to rise by about $4,058 per student in 2017‑18 over 2011‑12 levels (5. Governor’s budget).

Calculating the per student spending can be tricky depending on whom you ask. There is this official number of $10,795 per student (6. CA Department of Education). But for some critics, that number is not high enough. The California Budget & Policy Budget Center published a Fact Sheet in January 2017 called “California’s Support for K-12 Education Is Improving, but Still Lags the Nation” (7. California). The California Budget & Policy Center engages in independent fiscal and policy analysis and public education with the goal of improving public policies affecting the economic and social well-being of low- and middle-income Californians. While conceding that California’s K-12 education spending per student has increased significantly since 2012-13, the independent analysis concluded that California continues to trail the nation as a whole. Here are some highlights:

• In 2015-16, California ranked 41st among all states in spending per K-12 student after adjusting for differences in the cost of living in each state. California schools spent $10,291 per K-12 student in 2015-16, which is about $1,900 less than the $12,252 per student spent by the nation as a whole. California’s spending per student in 2015-16 was about $2,000 higher than it had been in 2012-13, at which point California ranked 50th in the nation.
• California ranked 37th among all states in K-12 spending as a share of the state economy in 2015-16. California’s K-12 school spending in 2015-16 was 3.29% of state personal income — a measure that reflects the size of the state’s economy — compared to 3.78% in the nation as a whole. In 2012-13, California’s K-12 school spending equaled 3.18% of state personal income — compared to 3.93% in the nation as a whole — and ranked 46th among all states. Gauging school spending as a share of the personal income received by the state’s residents can be useful because it takes into account differences in states’ wealth and thus in their capacity to support K-12 schools.
• California ranked last in the nation in the number of K-12 students per teacher in 2015-16. California’s student-to-teacher ratio in 2015-16 was greater than 22-to-1, more than 40% higher than the national ratio of 15.4 students per teacher. California had also ranked last in the nation in the number of K-12 students per teacher in 2012-13, with a ratio greater than 24-to-1.

The Education numbers for 2017-2018 are subject to Federal funding impacts and that’s where there is some worry. Pundits are quick to point out they don’t believe the Trump budget will ever see the light of day in its present form. However, you can find a listing of some potential impacts to education in California if it does pass, according to the Los Angeles Times: 7 things you need to know about how Trump’s budget would affect schools in California and nationwide (8. 7 things).

The Trump Impact on Jobs and the Economy

There are other impacts feared. You can read more analysis in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times.

Work Cited

1. BLS: Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor. https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
2. org. “Trump Wildly Inflates Unemployment.” Lori Robertson. Posted on February 10, 2016 http://www.factcheck.org/2016/02/trump-wildly-inflates-unemployment/
3. org. “No Evidence Jobs Data was ‘Manipulated’.” Eugene Kiely. Posted on March 13, 201 | Updated on March 14, 2017. http://www.factcheck.org/2017/03/no-evidence-jobs-data-was-manipulated/.
4. CA.gov. Regional Economic Analysis Profiles. http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/geography/regional-economic-profiles.html#Map
5. Governor’s budget 2017-2018. http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/
6. California Department of Education. “2015–16 Current Expense Per Average Daily Attendance – School Fiscal Services Division.” http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp
7. California Budget & Policy Center. “California’s Support for K-12 Education Is Improving, but Still Lags the Nation.” January 2017. Jonathan Kaplan. http://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/californias-support-k-12-education-improving-still-lags-nation
8. 7 things you need to know about how Trump’s budget would affect schools in California and nationwide. Joy Resmovits. May 23, 2017. http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-trump-budget-education-20170523-htmlstory.html

Jobs and Economy Team

Peter Duran

Kristine Guerrero

Erik Öhrström

Alexia Porron

• Team C leader Peter Duran was born and raised in Long Beach. He’s interested in political science and how it affects people. Duran has changed his major a few times but found that political science feels more real and personal than other majors that he’s tried. He’s interested in working with the magazine and a group of people to help the community.
•  Kristine  Guerrero plans to go to law school and pursue a career in Family law to help with families in difficult times. She’s a first generation Chicanx and the first in her family to receive a college degree. Having grown up in Southern California her entire life, Guerrero always been fascinated with multicultural elements and how they play out in  communities.
• Erik Oehrstroem is double-majoring in Journalism and Political science with a concentration on global politics. Learning and gaining insight about other cultures became a great interest of his when he completed the International Baccalaureate Program back home in Stockholm, Sweden. It taught him that there are other nations in the world in much greater need for socio-economic development. That’s why he wanted to go abroad and study journalism in the U.S.. Addressing the concerns of different local ethnic groups in the diverse society of Long Beach and investigating how government policy affects the infrastructure of the city has been an exciting topic for him to write about since transferring to CSULB.  In the future, Oehrstroem hopes to be able to continue advocating for marginalized groups.
• Alexia Porron majored in Political Science and minored in Sociology. Her career aspiration is becoming a lawyer with a focus of Civil Rights or Public Law. She enjoys reading and loves to travel to capture the world of others and understand their experiences and customs.

CSULB economy jobs My New America