Is California in Recession? (Part XVIII)

November employment figures are out. Time to re-evaluate this assessment from two years ago in Political Calculations that California was in recession.

Going by these [household survey based labor market] measures, it would appear that recession has arrived in California, which is partially borne out by state level GDP data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. [text as accessed on 12/27/2017]

The release provides an opportunity to revisit this question. It’s (still) unlikely that a recession occurred in California.

On employment:

Figure 1: California nonfarm payroll employment (dark blue), civilian employment (red), in 000’s  s.a., on log scale. Source: BLS.

As recounted in a previous post, the household series (which Ironman in Political Calculations relied upon) is subject to large revisions (even in as large a state as California), so the dip should be taken with a grain of salt.

On GDP:

Figure 2: California GDP, in mn. Ch2012$ SAAR (blue). NBER defined nation-wide recession dates shaded gray. Source: BEA and NBER.

Wells Fargo summarizes:

Job growth appears to be gaining some momentum at the tail end of the year. Nonfarm payrolls rose by a sturdy 28,400 net new jobs during November and overall job growth picked up to a 1.9% year-over-year pace. Furthermore, the state appears to be on pace to add over 320,000 new jobs for 2019 as whole, which would mark a solid improvement from the 278,400 jobs added the previous year.

For previous assessments, see: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7][8][9][10][11][12][13], [14], [15], [16], and [17].

19 thoughts on “Is California in Recession? (Part XVIII)

  1. Moses Herzog

    It’s rather amazing with the wild fires, high real estate prices etc, that California’s economy is as resilient as it is. I think Awnuhld can take a very small bow for that, and Jerry Brown can take an extenuated bow for that. Could some things be managed even better? Certainly they could. But I think I’ve heard people talk about making systemic adjustments to the economy as like turning around a very large/heavy ocean liner ship. They’ve done pretty well all things considered.

    If PG&E is turned into a cooperative, and they have more people like Phil Angelides running the show, I’m hopeful they can lower the amount of “wild fires” caused by electrical lines. That’s not going to wipe out wild fires in California, but it would help in the corrupt, stupid, and wasteful private corporations category.

  2. pgl

    From his 2017 post:

    “The following chart showing the trailing twelve month averages of California’s civilian labor force and number of employed is one that we’ve adapted from a different project to show that data in the context of the state’s higher-than-federal minimum wage increases and periods of negative GDP growth for the national economy. It shows that in 2017, the size of the state’s labor force has peaked and begun to decline in 2017, while the number of employed shows very slow to stagnant growth during the year.”

    Yes he is relying on the household survey for graph. But why is he using the trailing 12 month average (whatever that means)? His graph for the period looks different than yours. Feel free to comment but it seems PC was doing a bit of data mining back then!

    1. spencer

      official California population data:

      While data from the state Department of Finance suggests that California’s population grew to 39.96 million in 2019, the population growth rate from July 1, 2018 – July 1, 2019, stood at 0.35 percent, down from 0.57 percent from the year prior.

      Dilbert, what is the data source for your claim that California is losing population?

      1. dilbert dogbert

        LAT article I think.
        Maybe KQED
        Who knows?
        Here in California us Old Pharts say Get Off My Freeway You Whippersnappers!!!

        1. Barkley Rosser

          Nope, DD. You were reading those stories about all the domestic outmigration and got confused. Sorry.

    2. spencer

      official California population data:

      While data from the state Department of Finance suggests that California’s population grew to 39.96 million in 2019, the population growth rate from July 1, 2018 – July 1, 2019, stood at 0.35 percent, down from 0.57 percent from the year prior.

      Dilbert, what is the data source for your claim that California is losing population?

      Interesting, The BEA data on real per capita personal income shows California growing faster than the national average.
      It is deflated by the Implicit regional price deflators.

      1. pgl

        “The BEA data on real per capita personal income shows California growing faster than the national average.”

        Say what? PeakTrader kept telling us how everyone in CALI was suffering from abject poverty! I guess you will not be invited to appear on Fox & Friends!

      2. pgl

        Census reported today that the entire nation saw a population growth less than 0.5%. Why so low? If one takes the factors attributable to CALI one gets what they said about the entire nation. Fewer births, more old folks dying, and Trump’s decision to ban immigration of anyone who is not lily white.

    3. Barkley Rosser

      DD,

      Want to provide a source on this? I think you are wrong. You have been reading too many stories about the rising rate of domestic net outmigration.

      But I just googled this. Latest story is from four days ago in the San Jose Mercury News. Population growth in CA has reached an 80-year low but remains positive, if just barely. It was 0.4% in 2018 and lower this year. It could go negative at any point in the near future but is not there yet. What is still holding it in the positive zone id foreign immigration.

      1. pgl

        Here is what the Los Angeles Times reported:

        https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-21/california-population-continues-to-decline-with-state-emigration-a-major-factor

        California population growth slowest since 1900 as residents leave, immigration decelerates

        The number of Californians increased to 39.96 million, with new data from the Department of Finance showing mostly downward trends. They are rooted in fewer births, coupled with increased deaths among an aging population. The Golden State, however, has also seen changes in international migration, along with more and more residents leaving the state. The estimates, which indicate that California’s population grew by 141,300 people between July 1, 2018, and July 1, 2019, nonetheless signal a 0.35% growth rate, “down from 0.57% for the prior 12 months — the two lowest recorded growth rates since 1900,” department officials underscored.”

        California will likely pass 40 million people in 2020. Unless of course if those White House racists (Trump, Stephen Miller) come up with plan to eradicate those Hispanic immigrants. Lord knows they are doing their best to make California lily white.

        1. Barkley Rosser

          Looks like a misleading label on the link. We have had a lot of that regarding stories on energy where all sorts of people have been announcing for several years that the US was a net exporter of petroleum products due to such misleading labels on stories that did not actually support the label while reporting on increasing US oil production. It has now in the last month or so become a net petroleum exporter, but just now and just barely.

          1. ilsm

            I do not follow headlines on US energy “achievements”, I do go to EIA weekly reports, casually being retired.

            The US has been a net (increasing) exporter hydrocarbon gas liquids since around 2010:

            https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydrocarbon-gas-liquids/imports-and-exports-of-hydrocarbon-gas-liquids.php

            The EIA weekly petroleum balance sheet shows this on line 21 (production on line 16).

            https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/supply/weekly/pdf/table1.pdf

            Natural gas plant liquids are the root of the net exporter claim, which you are correct is intermittent and usually negligible since US continues to import crude oil (line 4).

            Hydrocarbon-gas-liquids aka Natural gas plant liquids are added profit from extracting natural gas.

          2. Barkley Rosser

            I do not know what weird category you are looking at, ilsm, but according to eia.gov/today/energy/detail.php?nd=42176 the more precise moment the US became a net exporter of “petroleum products” was in September, 2019.

    4. pgl

      PeakTrader used to make this claim over and over even after we provided reliable data that Cali’s population was growing. Keep in mind that PeakTrader is also known as PeakLiar.

  3. Moses Herzog

    As a man who spent roughly 7 years in China, and therefor feels he has “more right” to discuss it than most Westerners, and knows both China’s charms and incessantly annoying aspects as well, I wanna tell you folks this was a “shocking” headline for me to read:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/business/us-china-books-trade-war.html

    Now I’m gonna tell you as the “keen” observer of society I am, with limited brain cells, I found looking at things somewhat simply can provide answers, so let’s just assume you have ONLY 3 answers to the question:

    A: This really punishes all the vast amount of USA publishing houses exporting books to China. “Super punitive” for American publishing houses.

    B: This is helpful to Chinese companies creating English content that compete with all the “plethora” of USA published books sold in China.

    C: This once again gives a largely (no not 100%, but largely) nationalistic and xenophobic culture an opportunity to “do what they do” and remain ignorant about the world around them.

    Now, presented with this rude and simpleton white dude American’s ONLY three choices above, which one are you going with?? Please provide further explanation on exactly which American publishing house has been hammered by this government decision in the essay portion of your answer, to be at least one sentence in length.

  4. Moses Herzog

    There’s an article on NYT that basically just uploaded now about California by Conor Dougherty. I can’t get past the paywall, but I may head out and get a hardcopy tomorrow and see what it says. Seems to kind of cover the conjecture or area of gray here.

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