Proposition 30: A year later, California schools seeing benefits of tax measure
One side argued that the state needed a temporary infusion of cash to keep schools and vital state programs afloat until the economy fully recovered. The other side countered that new tax money would simply line the pockets of school bureaucrats and unionized teachers — and that thousands of overtaxed “job creators” would flee California and throw the state’s still-recovering economy into reverse… Kolko’s study of census data from 2005 through 2011 showed that although California’s richest residents face high taxes, lower-income people are more likely to leave. In fact, he said, the state saw a slight net in-migration of households making $200,000 or more during those years… Although the jury is still out on the effect of Proposition 30 on the California economy, initial indications are encouraging. The state’s unemployment rate fell eight-tenths of a percentage point — to 8.8 percent — from last November to August. During the same period, the national jobless rate fell a half of a percentage point to 7.3 percent.
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by Jessica Calefati and Josh Richman, The San Jose Mercury News.