The index isn't meant to be comprehensive, nor is it up-to-the-minute, since many of the measures I use are reported by government agencies with a considerable lag time. But the index does provide a respite from the short-term and hyper-partisan thinking of the political world, a chance to step back and take stock of how things have changed over the past year and over time.
If you want more detail, I'm offering some at my online Weblog, the California Insider, and plan more in the year ahead. You can find that at www.sacbee.com/insider.
So how are we doing? Mostly pretty well, with some exceptions. Real incomes are up for the first time in four years, and unemployment is down. Farm production is booming, and exports are climbing back toward their pre-recession peak. Homeownership is at an all-time high, and our air is generally cleaner. Violent crime is dropping, but property crime is on the rise. The percentage of the population with private or government health insurance is holding steady, but too many still go without, and the number of people on welfare assistance and in poverty is creeping upward. Our children's mastery of the state's math and English standards rose in the past year, but a wide gap still exists between students from affluent and low-income families.
In preparing this year's index, I have looked at historical data from the past decade whenever possible. In many cases, those numbers provide a perspective that might surprise you. Incremental progress that gets lost in the year-to-year fluctuations begins to add up over time.
Here is the detail:
Income: Californians' real per capita personal income increased in 2004 for the first time in four years. The inflation-adjusted growth rate was 2.7 percent. In current dollars, per capita income increased from $33,389 to $35,172, or 5.3 percent.
Median family income, as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, soared during the 1990s and then flattened out and actually declined for one year on an inflation-adjusted basis. Yet real median family income is up about $12,000, or 29 percent, since 1994. In 1994 it was $42,051. In 2003, it was $54,147.
Jobs: Total employment grew by about 410,000 to just more than 17 million between November 2004 and November 2005, according to the household survey reported by the Employment Development Department. Unemployment declined from 6 percent to 5.2 percent.
Compared to 10 years ago, there are about 3 million more people employed in California.
Agriculture: The value of production from California farms soared between 2003 and 2004, from $30.2 billion to $34.3 billion. About half of that increase came from crop output and the other half from animals, though the value of crop production overall is three times greater than that from animals. Net farm income, meanwhile, increased by 45 percent between 2003 and 2004, from $8.4 billion to $12.2 billion. Farm income was $5.9 billion in 2002. The top five products in 2004 were dairy products, greenhouse/nursery, grapes, almonds and cattle.
Exports: The state's exports were climbing again in 2005, and through October their $95 billion value exceeded the first 10 months of 2004 by about 5 percent, according to the World Institute for Strategic Economic Research. Exports are still not quite on track to exceed the record $119.6 billion in products that left California in 1999, but they are getting close.
Health insurance: The percentage of Californians covered by either private or government health insurance held steady in 2004 at 81.3 percent, according to the Census Bureau. About 250,000 people were added to the rolls, while about 210,000 joined the ranks of the uninsured.
The raw number of people covered by either private insurance or the government is steadily climbing in California, and the percentage of the population covered has remained about the same for a decade. Ten years ago, 25.5 million Californians had health insurance while about 6.7 million were going without. In 2004, 29.1 million Californians had coverage, and the number going without was back at 6.7 million - after rising to as high as 7.4 million in 1998 and then declining to 6.4 million by 2002.
The biggest change over time has been the share with private health insurance. That number declined from 70 percent in 1987 to 60 percent in 1994, went back up to 65 percent in 2002 and settled back down at 62 percent in 2004. Still, a lot of people might be surprised to learn that a greater share of the California population has private coverage today than 10 years ago.
Home ownership: California's home ownership rate crept up in 2004, the most recent year for which the U.S. Census has numbers. The rate climbed from 58.9 percent to 59.7 percent, but the state fell behind Hawaii and is now second from the bottom among the states, ahead of only New York. The national average is 69 percent. California has lagged the national average by about 10 percentage points for at least 20 years.
Poverty: California's poverty rate edged up in 2004, according to the latest numbers available. The rate went from 13.1 percent to 13.3 percent, continuing a slow upward trend since the poverty rate bottomed out at 12.6 percent at the end of the dot-com boom. California's poverty rate was 17.9 percent in 1994. And compared with that year, California today has about 1 million fewer people in poverty despite having a population that has grown by 4 million people, most of them immigrants and their children.
Welfare: Welfare caseloads were virtually unchanged between June 2004 and June 2005, with about 1,000 cases added to the rolls, which now total about 488,000. Caseloads began declining rapidly in the mid-1990s thanks to the economic boom and, later, the welfare reforms that set time limits on welfare and moved more recipients into jobs. In 1995, 920,000 families were on welfare, nearly twice as many as today.
Crime: The violent-crime rate continued its steady decline in 2004, the latest year for which complete figures are available. The rate dropped from 569 crimes per 100,000 to 540 crimes. Homicide and rape continued to decline slowly while there were bigger drops in robbery and aggravated assault.
The property-crime rate edged up again in 2004, rising from 1,929 crimes per 100,000 people to 1,946 crimes. Most of the increase came in motor vehicle theft, which jumped from 670 per 100,000 to 688. Burglary and larceny-theft rates remained steady.
The total number of violent crimes in 2004 - 197,432 - was about the same as it was in 1984, although California has added about 11 million people since then. The number of violent crimes peaked in 1992 at 345,508.
Air pollution: The number of days that California's metropolitan areas exceeded the federal limits for ozone continued to decline. In 2005, the federal standard was violated in one of the six largest basins 205 times, compared to 247 in 2004 and 330 in 2003. In coastal areas such as San Diego and San Francisco, the national standard is almost never exceeded anymore. Ventura is trending down but is still higher, and the Los Angeles area, except for 2003, has been treading water between 84 and 96 days. The Central Valley areas around Sacramento and points south have also been trending down but are still quite high.
Given the challenges California faces with a changing economy, a growing population and a large number of immigrants who arrive here poor and educated, the state is doing remarkably well. Many hurdles remain, however, especially in reducing a stubbornly high poverty rate and bringing low-income children up to speed in education. Those two things are probably closely related. Here's hoping the state makes more progress on those fronts in the year ahead.
About the writer:
Reach Daniel Weintraub at (916) 321-1914 or dweintraub@sacbee.com. Readers can see his daily Weblog at www.sacbee.com/insider. Back columns: www.sacbee.com/weintraub.