Don’t be fooled by politicians claiming things are rosy in the California job market. You’re paying for it.
California added 138,500 payroll jobs in the year ending in August, a gain that has drawn headlines about the state outpacing the rest of the country. But the total tells only part of the story.
Government payrolls actually fell by 3,600 jobs. The much bigger gain was in health care and social assistance: 111,800 jobs. An analysis by the Center for Jobs and the Economy groups that sector with government employment because much of its work is supported by public programs. Together, those categories accounted for 108,200 net jobs—78% of California’s total gain. All other private industries added just 30,300 jobs, net.
Those health care jobs provide real services, and the figures do not show that taxpayers paid for every new position. But California’s Medi-Cal program is a major source of funding for health care providers. Calling the jobs “private sector” because they appear on private payrolls can obscure their dependence on government spending. So much for the pols’ favorite buzzword: “transparency”.
The distinction matters for economic growth. A growing publicly funded workforce can meet important needs, but its expansion also requires continuing public revenue. California’s headline job total is therefore a poor measure of how broadly its businesses are growing on their own. Private sector jobs are a sign of real growth of our economy.
AI helped compile this story
