For many, Los Angeles evokes images of year-round sunshine and celebrity, a dream city of wealth and possibility. Yet in reality, half of L.A. residents living in poverty are employed, showing that low wages drive poverty as much as unemployment does. The benefits and consequences of raising Los...

The report recommends an economic adjustment strategy to reduce severe job losses projected as a result of cutbacks in defense funding for Los Angeles County industries.Questions investigated include:1. What are the impacts of defense cutbacks on Los Angeles County?2. Who in Los Angeles County...

The civil unrest of 1992 can be understood as a manifestation of rage over economic deprivation and blighted hopes. At the time of the April 1992 civil unrest, Los Angeles County was in its second year of what proved to be its most severe recession since the Great Depression. The greatest...

The 1994 Business Survey was requested by the City of Long Beach to guide and strengthen its business outreach and retention efforts. Long Beach was experiencing a high level of business distress as a result of the 1990 recession and the collapse of aerospace.The survey was sent to 908 companies...

The City of Long Beach and other centers of aerospace production that reaped the rewards of the 1980s defense-spending boom must now confront the realities of restructuring. Since World War II, the Douglas Aircraft plant made Long Beach an important center of the US aerospace industry and...

New development solves housing problems for some workers by creating new jobs that pay sustaining wages. At the same time, it creates additional demand for affordable housing because some of the workers who will be employed will not earn enough money to afford market-rate rental housing. In...

Over 54,000 workers employed in Long Beach's formal economy will be affected by increasing the minimum wage to $15. The annual earnings of workers will increase by about $405 million. The largest share of increased wages — almost $130 million — will go to workers who also live in the City of...

The most salient fact about the South Bay economy is the importance of high technology manufacturing and services. The area's high technology sector is a tapestry of industries linked to space systems, aeronautical services, and aviation; its output includes research and development services as...

Given the apparent lack of new jobs created for the region's unemployed aerospace workers, this survey was designed to investigate the progress and strategies of high technology firms confronting precipitously declining defense sales. Defense conversion programs that bring aerospace technologies...

Unemployment and under-employment represented $25.8 billion in annual wages not earned in Los Angeles County, $28.2 billion in lost private sector economic activity and $4 billion in tax revenue not generated. In 2012, over a fifth of Los Angeles County's labor force was unemployed or...