9.3% and IOUs On The Way

Californians cannot find work anymore.

California's unemployment rate jumped nearly a full percentage point from November to December, settling at 9.3 percent, the highest rate in 15 years.

Only a year earlier, in December 2007, unemployment was 5.9 percent, according to twin surveys by the California Employment Development Department.

My guess would be that double-digit unemployment is on the way by next month, February at the latest. Because the greatest problem with state government is that the tax structure is too closely tied to a boom-and-bust economic cycle, with no stable revenue sources (2/3 just enforces that insanity), less jobs means less income tax revenue, so watch that commonly cited $41.8 billion dollar budget deficit number to expand greatly. So a lot of money from that State Fiscal Stabilization Fund will just fill the hole between assumed revenues and reality. Then people who are trying to count on any money source are going to get an IOU in the mail instead of their tax refund.

We. Are. Screwed.