Dan Walters: California job report needs to be put into larger context

“At the risk of earning such a gubernatorial epithet once again, let’s put the new jobs report and other recent economic data in a larger, perhaps more realistic, context.

Non-agricultural wage and salary employment in California last month was 14.3 million, and total employment – including the self-employed – was 16.5 million. With 18.5 million in a “labor force” of potential workers, that means just under 2 million were jobless for an unemployment rate of 10.7 percent.

A year earlier, unemployment was just over 200,000 higher and the unemployment rate was 11.9 percent, so June was a definite improvement. But it was still the third-highest rate in the nation, nearly a third higher than the national rate.” (Sacramento Bee, July 29, 2012). Read more here.