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With the 2010s at their end, our “Redemption Decade” series explores how California’s economy rebounded from the destruction of the Great Recession. This is the fifth and final part, on work to be done.

California’s economic rebound has not returned everyone to financial stability. The largely remarkable turnabout has produced some noteworthy shortfalls.

There is still work to do, literally and philosophically, to keep up the state’s economic momentum while broadening its financial impact. Let my trusty spreadsheet highlight major California challenges …

Jobs: The national leader in job creation has the fourth-highest “underemployment” rate.

Pay: The biggest gap between high-wage earners and the middle class.

Homebuilding: Grew at roughly half the pace of job creation.

Poverty: The largest reduction of financially stressed households still leaves the state as a national leader.

Population: The smallest share of interstate moves.

Less-than-stellar jobs

Not all new jobs are created equal.

There are the widely discussed “official” unemployment figures that mask the pain found inside wider-reaching stats tracking how discouraging the workplace can be.

By “official” tabulation, California’s unemployment rate ran 4.1% in the year ended in September, the 13th highest among the states. The impressive, national-leading job creation pushed this “official” math — tracking the share of folks unemployed and seeking a job, by a narrow definition — down from 11.3% in 2009. It’s the sixth-biggest drop nationally.

But ponder another measurement — “U6” in economist lingo — that’s created by the same government job counters. This takes the “official” number and adds in two groups to the “afflicted” side of the equation: (1) the “discouraged” — the jobless who fall just outside of the main statistical categorization of unemployment; and (2) the “want more” — part-time workers who want a full-time gig.

California had 8.5% of its workers in this less-than-ideal employment status in the year ended in September vs. the eye-catching 21% in 2009. Yes, that’s the fourth-biggest improvement nationally, but this discouraged-workers measure is worse in only 15 other states.

Consider the gap between official unemployment numbers and this broader accounting of workplace disappointments, my “underemployment” rate: Yes, California cut this gap by more than any state, post-recession. Still, only three states — Oregon, Mississippi and Alaska — have a bigger slice of underemployed workers.

With California’s high cost of living, mere underemployment can be financially devastating.

Wage gaps

Between 2008 and 2018, the upper crust of the California workforce was well paid as everything from technology work to construction jobs took off.

California pay at the 75th percentile — the midpoint of the upper half — was the nation’s sixth-highest last year at $73,110. And that’s up 21% in a decade.

Compare that with the Golden State’s median wage earner who earned the 10th most nationally at $42,430. That was up only 16% in a decade.

These trends mean California’s upper crust wages run 72% greater than the median. That chasm has widened from 66% in 2008 and is the nation’s largest pay spread. It topped New York at 68.1%, Virginia at 67.7% and the national median of 57%.

This divide shows just who can best afford the high cost of California living.

Building’s bust

California builders this decade will have filed permits for roughly 840,000 residential units, a construction pace that’s one-third slower than the previous 20 years.

That cooldown is somewhat explainable due to real estate’s lengthly financial hangover from the Great Recession. Homebuilding in the rest of the nation fell by almost as much.

However, California employers did not have similar insecurities about restarting their hiring. Since the end of 2009, jobs in all industries were added statewide at a pace nearly four times what was seen over the previous two decades. Nationwide, hiring only doubled out of the Great Recession.

So, California accounted for 8% of all U.S. housing construction in the 2010s while employers statewide created 15% of all new jobs.

That imbalance is why it’s so hard to find housing. Ponder Census Bureau data on empty housing units, rentals and ownership.

Through 2018, 6.4% of California units were vacant this decade. Not only is that significantly below the 10% national vacancy rate, it’s down from California’s 8% average over the previous 20 years.

In a state with 13 million housing units, this vacancy dip equals about 200,000 fewer choices for buyers or renters — or roughly the number of homes constructed every two years.

Poverty problems

Combine housing and wage woes and you get California’s continued lead spot in the nation for households living on poverty-level incomes, at least by one federal measurement.

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The U.S. Census Bureau’s relatively new supplemental poverty yardstick shows California in 2018 with 7.13 million residents living on poverty-level incomes. Next was Texas (4 million), Florida (3.4 million) and New York (2.8 million).

Statewide poverty is worrisome even if you factor in nearly 40 million Californians: 18.2% are impoverished according to this standard. Only Washington, D.C., scored worse.

Yet since 2011, 1.64 million fewer Californians were living in poverty. No state’s count fell by more and that’s roughly one-quarter of the national drop in poverty.

Certainly, the statewide hiring spree helped lift some residents’ financial fortunes. But there’s also little doubt the motivation behind much of the 660,000 net outmigration to other states in 2011-18: Folks could no longer afford to live in the supposedly Golden State.

Simply unattractive

A mixed picture on employment. A housing shortage that compounds an already high cost of living. Is it any wonder few folks choose to move here?

In 2018, 7.6 million Americans switched states. Only 501,000 chose to come to California. Yes, the nation’s most populous state with 12% of all residents could lure in only 6.6% of interstate movers.

California’s population growth is at an 80-year low, primarily because only those with solid job offers can come here. Despite the lure of potentially world-changing employment, not to mention the fabulous climate, California counts only 1.3% of its population as new arrivals from the rest of the nation.