Note to the Candidates: Sky May Not Be Falling

At no time in the last several years have California’s jobs data, the key to measuring the state’s economic health, been less reliable. Statistical inaccuracies inevitably crop up during volatile periods, such as a recession or a recovery, because the numbers are based on surveys that frequently lag behind realities on the shop floor. But these inaccuracies have been magnified by new, untested survey methodologies whose latent errors have not been fully identified, let alone corrected.

This is no esoteric matter. The target of the recall and the replacement candidates have been making strong statements about the condition of the state economy. Gov. Gray Davis has touted evidence that California is doing better than the rest of the country. At last week’s debate, the five leading candidates to replace the governor overflowed with conflicting economic data. Problem is, the underlying data aren’t reliable enough to support assertions about current economic conditions.

There’s another problem. The aspiring candidates offer up economic prescriptions for ailments that may have no factual underpinnings next spring, when the data will be corrected. As a result, those who purport to be “saving” California from a job-loss calamity may be seriously misjudging the political consequences of their message.

Most of the debate about California’s economic health depends on information contained in the monthly employment reports released by the state Employment Development Department. Unfortunately, the underlying data used to produce the reports are due for a major revision that won’t be completed until well after the Oct. 7 election.

California’s employment statistics are derived from a survey of a relatively small number of firms. Results are then used to extrapolate employment for the state and various counties and regions. The accuracy of these estimates depends on how closely the assumptions used to infer the broad numbers actually reflect real-world trends.

The process is most reliable when the economy is stable. When recessions or growth spurts depart from previous trends, however, state employment estimates can go astray. To correct for this problem, the data are “benchmarked,” or tested against actual payrolls and tax receipts. The underlying assumptions in the employment model are accordingly modified.

Since late 2000, several factors have unsettled California’s reported employment data. First, the recession bit so deeply and so fast, especially in the once highflying Bay Area, that company survey reports could not keep pace with actual job cutbacks and business failures. Once the lag was identified, statewide employment estimates had to be revised downward by nearly 100,000 jobs in 2000, and by an additional 175,000 jobs in 2001. Official reports thus didn’t fully reflect the depth of the recession until well after the fact. It’s likely that current job data will also have to be adjusted at the next benchmarking, in March.

Confounding matters further, California’s employment survey methodology was significantly revamped in 2002. It now uses a new, randomized system designed and implemented by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. This approach may prove much more accurate than previous techniques. As with anything brand new, however, it’s virtually certain that it will need to be fine-tuned before its accuracy can be assured.

What this means is that since early 2002 -- when the new survey method was fully introduced, and after the last benchmark was completed -- state employment statistics have become increasingly uncertain. From August 2002 to August 2003, for example, the three-month rolling average of reported employment results indicated that California lost about 44,000 jobs, a 0.3% decline. If true, that’s less severe than the pace of job losses reported for the nation as a whole. Yet, over the same period, reported regional employment suggests that the state instead lost a net 93,000 jobs, a 0.7% setback that would be roughly twice as bad as the rest of the country.

Many experts believe that jobs will be added to the regional numbers in part because the statewide figures are thought to be based on more complete samples of company surveys. Consistent with this view, the latest California Department of Finance bulletin indicates that state tax receipts for the current fiscal year are up about 10% compared with 2002. That seems to indicate a stabilizing economy.

But reported job losses for the largest, best-surveyed counties in the state, including Los Angeles and those in the Bay Area, are still quite high, totaling nearly 100,000 in the last year alone. It’s possible that these estimates may be substantially adjusted for the better. But it’s troubling that California’s best analyzed, major employment centers don’t seem to be tracking reported statewide trends. In addition, no one knows for sure if the state’s apparently higher tax receipts were generated by sustainable job-market improvements. A few large, one-time bonus payments to a handful of highly paid professionals in such hot sectors as stocks and real estate could be skewing the numbers.

Gambling that an apocalyptic view of the California economy will bring out recall voters thus seems a risky bet for a candidate to make. To date, there’s little systematic evidence that businesses are shifting large numbers of jobs to neighboring states, as was repeatedly claimed during last week’s debate in Sacramento. Nor is it yet clear that the public sector’s undeniable budgetary mismanagement has significantly harmed California.

Since December 2000, for example, when the new-economy bubble burst, states often touted as having relatively good business climates -- Oregon, Missouri, Colorado, Indiana and Ohio -- have suffered more severe job losses than California. The Golden State also significantly outperformed other large-scale economies, including Michigan’s, Illinois’, New York’s and Massachusetts’.

It’s possible that the newly passed legislation mandating that most companies provide health insurance for their employees -- if signed by Davis -- would inhibit job growth, as business leaders widely predict. But there’s a big difference between seeking office to fix a continuing catastrophe and trying to avoid one in the future.

California’s geographic disparities further undercut political appeals that trade in doomsday economics. Parts of the state that have the poorest-performing economies -- Greater San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles -- are also the most ambivalent about spurring growth. Since late 2000, Bay Area employment has plummeted by as much as 18%, a near-Depression rate of decline. Yet, the region is remarkably devoid of pro-growth sentiment. Few of its elected officials display even a passing interest in job creation.

It seems that as long as home values stay high and high-end employment in such fields as filmmaking, professional services and investment banking are unaffected by blue-collar and working-class job losses, California’s worst-performing regions will be deaf to pro-business political appeals. In 2000, when the last boom was in full swing, these regions voted 68% for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. Last November, long after the bubble burst and their economies went into steep decline, they voted for Davis by virtually the same margin. If pro-growth appeals didn’t resonate in poorly performing areas when times were truly bad, they are unlikely to work when the economy is thought to be stabilizing.

Meanwhile, the rest of the state has been doing markedly better. Employment in places like Riverside, San Bernardino, Sacramento and San Diego counties and the Vallejo-Fairfield region expanded during the recession. In many instances, growth rates in these areas surpassed most other parts of the country. Voters in these better-performing regions haven’t experienced the kind of economic retrenchment that some candidates contend is taking place. They seem more concerned about sprawl, traffic and other unwanted byproducts of rapid development.

Recent electoral history has been unkind to candidates running against the California economy. Voters seem to intuitively grasp that when politicians implicitly run down their livelihoods to seek public office, the state’s reputation in world financial circles can be tarnished for years to come. That’s a legacy no honorable candidate should ever aspire to build.