California.Show your work.
45 public charts. Each one gets a verdict against its own 2017–19 baseline. Click any chart to zoom — ⌘/Ctrl-click opens it in a new tab.
Homes sold (closed sales), indexed to 2017-2019 average
30-year fixed mortgage rate
California payroll jobs, total and information sector (year-over-year)
Top 1%: share of income vs. share of income tax (and bottom 80%)
AGI needed to enter each top group (nominal and inflation-adjusted)
What income is taxed: wages vs. net capital gains (California residents)
General Fund revenue per resident, nominal vs inflation-adjusted
Net domestic migration: California and LA County (Census)
Median days on market, list to contract
Sale-to-list price ratio
Median sale price, nominal vs inflation-adjusted, Los Angeles County
Median sale price, nominal vs inflation-adjusted, California
Repeat-sales home price growth, year over year
Share of median household income needed to buy the typical home
Housing units permitted per 1,000 residents: California vs peers
Net job change by industry, California: three windows
Los Angeles County jobs: total vs. excluding health care & social assistance
12-month job change: total vs. health/social vs. all other industries (California)
Rainy-day fund (Budget Stabilization Account): balance and share of GF revenues
Net income (AGI) gained or lost through tax-filer migration, California (IRS SOI)
Median days on market, active listings
Days to contract by property type, Los Angeles County
Months of supply
Active listings, indexed to 2017-2019 average
Share of listings with a price reduction
Typical asking rent, Los Angeles County
Median household income, nominal vs inflation-adjusted
California housing units permitted per month (seasonally adjusted)
Unemployment rate: LA County, California, U.S.
California initial unemployment claims, weekly (4-week average)
California jobs: total vs. excluding health care & social assistance
Jobs by industry, California (2019 average = 100)
Inside health care & social assistance, California
Government jobs by level vs. private jobs excluding health/social (2019 = 100)
Average annual pay per job by industry (QCEW, California private)
Who pays California income tax: share of resident tax liability by income group
Returns with AGI of $1 million+: their share of returns, wages, capital gains and tax
Tax owed by tax year vs. cash collected by fiscal year
State General Fund: revenues and transfers vs expenditures
Personal income tax as a share of all California state taxes (Census)
California general obligation bond ratings (S&P, Moody's, Fitch)
Nasdaq Composite (monthly average): stock-market driver of capital-gains revenue
Pension funded ratios: CalPERS (PERF) and CalSTRS (Defined Benefit Program)
Unfunded pension liabilities: CalPERS and CalSTRS
Pension investment returns vs assumed return
3 of 10 still worse
than before the pandemic.
Housing costs, job growth outside health care, and people leaving. Two are improving, one is flat — and all three still sit worse than 2017–19. Level and direction are different questions; a trend arrow can’t erase where a number sits.
Cost to own vs income51.58WORSE↗ IMPRJob growth outside health care+12.5kWORSE↗ IMPRNet domestic migration−229kWORSE→ FLATHousing permits9,111WITHIN→ FLATUnemployment rate5.1WITHIN↗ IMPRBond rating3.33WITHIN→ FLATBudget balance1.06WITHIN↗ IMPRRainy-day fund7.89WITHIN↘ WORSCalPERS funded85BETTER↗ IMPRCalSTRS funded79.3BETTER↗ IMPRIncome of movers−$11.9BUNKNOWN? ––
Thank you for checking the math.
More jobs.
A narrower
engine.
California has 674,000 more payroll jobs than before the pandemic. Health care and social assistance added 751,000. Everything else — tech, finance, construction, manufacturing, retail, combined — is down 77,000.
See it by industryHalf your
paycheck.
Two-thirds in LA.
Buying the median-priced home now takes 51.6% of a median household income statewide, and 69.1% in Los Angeles County. Both are improving lately. Both are still worse than 2017–19.
of California’s resident income tax comes from the top 1% of returns.
Income groups are groups of returns, not tax brackets. Who pays is shown as a fact — it is not scored as good or bad, because concentration cuts both ways: it funds the state and makes revenue swing with the stock market. Open the full stack →
Every year,
more leave
than arrive.
Net moves to other U.S. states, year to July 1. The outflow peaked at −471k in 2021 and has eased to −229k — still worse than any year of 2017–19.
Who’s leavingCensus population estimates, thousands of people. Vintage 2020 through 2020; Vintage 2025 after. Latest year hatched: estimate.
Pick a receipt.
45 public series across six questions Californians actually ask. Each one shows its source, its lag, and the exact file behind it.
Housing
What does it cost to buy, and how fast do listings move?
Jobs & pay
Is job growth broad, or concentrated in a few industries?
Who pays
Who pays California’s income tax, and is the mix changing?
Finances
Are revenue, spending, and reserves keeping pace?
Pensions
Are the big retirement promises funded on their own assumptions?
People moving
Are people, and taxable income, leaving or arriving?
How we keep
it honest.
Sharp doesn’t mean sloppy. These rules apply to every chart on this site — including the ones that make California look good.
Improving can still be bad.
A reading can be moving the right way and still sit worse than 2017–19. We show level and direction side by side so one never hides the other.
No grade. On purpose.
We don't average housing, jobs and pensions into a letter. An average lets a good number cancel a bad one. You get the readings, not a verdict.
Unknown is not neutral.
When a file is stale or missing it is labeled unknown, with the reason. It is never quietly counted as fine.
LA County stands alone.
Los Angeles County is charted on its own and never added into the statewide picture.
Estimates look like estimates.
Preliminary, estimated and enacted figures are drawn dashed and labeled. They are never passed off as actuals.
Every number has a receipt.
Each chart names its source, vintage and release lag, and you can download the exact file behind it.
You voted.
Where’d it go?
Ballot measures, the money they raised or authorized, and what’s actually been measured since. Promise, legal scope, money and outcomes kept in separate drawers.
Proposition 30 (2012) and Proposition 55 (2016)
Income-tax revenue · CaliforniaProposition 1 (2014), water bond
Bond authorization · CaliforniaProposition 63 (2004), Mental Health Services Act
Behavioral health tax · California, mostly administered by countiesCheck
our math.
Every chart links to the public file it came from. If you find an error in a figure, an axis, a calculation or a citation, challenge it. Accepted fixes are published with the old number, the new number and the reason.