Enjoy the long weekend. Here are some links…
• California’s unemployment rate fell last month. Real sign of recovery or a dead cat bounce?
• Seriously? DiFi denying a run for governor again? Wow, that’s about the 800th time that’s been written.
• Lockyer: What Arnold said. This kind of stuff really makes me long for the days of wine and roses that were the Phil Angelides treasurership.
• The Transportation Secretary appropriated $48 million dollars this week for BART restoration, but like a lot of transportation funds in the stimulus, they provide funds for improvements to existing transit lines rather than build-outs of new lines. Not that the funding isn’t needed to make infrastructure improvements, but this isn’t exactly an expansion.
• Pete Stark will be back at work shortly. He’s been in the hospital for pneumonia for a while, but all signs point to a full return to health shortly.
• Sadly, John Wildermuth took a buyout from the Chronicle. His reportage will be sorely missed in SF and around the state.
• The last race that was up in the air on May 5th is most likely no longer up in the air. A large chunk of new votes were tallied in the Los Angeles City Council District 5 race, and Paul Koretz has expanded his lead over opponent David Vahedi to 551 votes (the previous margin was 335). Barring a huge mistake in earlier vote-counting there simply aren’t enough outstanding votes for Vahedi to have a chance to make up the difference.
at Calitics!
Unfortunately, California still lost jobs, so either people that were unemployed left the state in large numbers (unlikely), took part time jobs, or people stopped looking for jobs altogether. Remember that the “unemployment” rate only reflects the percentage of people without work who are actively seeking a job, so it does not count people who have given up, or taken a part time job instead.
As a result, the drop in unemployment means that a lot of people have given up, not that they found new jobs. That is terrible news.