By Loren Kaye
President of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education

How many times in the last two months have you heard that California is creating jobs faster than the national average? Quite a bit, I would guess.

California’s economy is recovering, but it ain’t “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Since California’s economy hit rock bottom in February of 2010, the state has added a half million jobs, or 3.6% more employed. During that same period, the rest of the nation has added 3.6 million jobs, or 3.2% more workers. Yes, California has outperformed the country – but it’s hardly time to take a victory lap. After all, as the chart below shows, we are starting from a base of a far greater loss of employment, so we should expect our recovery to be more robust than the nation’s. I would suggest: better than we’ve done thus far.

Our policy makers shouldn’t be using our fragile – and regionally disparate – recovery to attack our well-recognized business climate deficiencies. We can do better. (Fox & Hounds Daily, October 16, 2012).