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Tag: Direct Impacts

Long Beach Rising: A City that Works for Everyone

October 13, 2015 / By Daniel Flaming, Halil Toros and Patrick Burns / AFL-CIO, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor

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 Long Beach The greatest number of affected workers and the largest payroll increases will be in restaurants, retail trade, education, transportation and warehousing, and health care. The economic stimulus from increased consumption by workers' households will create an estimated 3,186 new jobs and generate $442 million in increased sales in the region.

Sustain Los Angeles: Industry Greenhouse Gas and Wage Sustainability

May 11, 2015 / By Daniel Flaming and Patrick Burns / California Energy Commission

Communities in Los Angeles County have a new set of tools for land use decisions and development policies that decrease greenhouse gas emissions and improve workers’ wages. A report by the Economic Roundtable, Industry Greenhouse Gas and Wage Sustainability, identifies the climate change effects as well as the wage sustainability of jobs in each industry.

Repaying Hospitality: Economic Impacts of Raising Hotel Workers Wages and Benefits in the City of Los Angeles

December 1, 2013 / By Patrick Burns and Daniel Flaming / Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy

A $15.37 minimum wage for Los Angeles hotels with 100 or more rooms would affect over 5,000 low-wage hotel workers, including housekeepers, janitors, banquet servers, bellhops and desk clerks. The twenty year trend for hotel growth and rising hotel occupancy and revenue support the finding that the proposed new minimum wage is feasible for the hotel industry in Los Angeles.

Water Use Efficiency and Jobs

December 1, 2011 / By Patrick Burns / City of Los Angeles Piping Industry, International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials, National Inspection-Testing-Certification Corporation, Progress and Education Fund, the Community Development Department and Workforce Investment Board

At the peak of California’s most recent drought in 2009, the Los Angeles economy was in severe recession, with unemployment above 12 percent. These twin crises identified a policy opportunity to tackle both challenges together. Public investments in water use efficiency provide economic and job benefits alongside the environmental benefits from using less water. 

Concentrated Poverty in Los Angeles

February 9, 2008 / By Michael Matsunaga / the City of Los Angeles

Poverty adversely affects the lives of Los Angeles residents as well as the City as a whole.  Among other things, poverty has a direct financial impact on local government because of above-average per capita costs for municipal services related to police and fire protection, courts, education, and other services in poor neighborhoods.  
Photograph "Long Beach McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Plant; 28.07.1995" by Aero Icarus, Zürich, Switzerland, obtained and used 1995. Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on August 26, 2010, taken on July 28, 1995. Protected under the CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED license.

Economic Restructuring in Long Beach: Opportunities and Challenges in a Post-Aerospace Economy

September 1, 1997 / By Mark Drayse, Daniel Flaming and David L. Rigby,UCLA Lewis Center For Regional Policy Studies / Economic Roundtable

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 dominated the local economy. In 1992, the Long Beach aerospace industry employed 36,100 workers, which was 22 percent of the city's total employment. Almost all of these workers were employed by McDonnell Douglas. Long Beach aerospace workers earned a total payroll of over $1.5 billion, which was 30 percent of the city's total payroll. These figures understate the total impact of aerospace on the Long Beach economy, through linkages with firms in other industries that provide inputs to the aerospace industry, and purchases of goods and services by aerospace workers.

Post Cold War Frontiers: Defense Downsizing and Conversion in Los Angeles

January 1, 1996 / By Michael Oden-Rutgers University Project on Regional and Industrial Economics, Ann Markusen-Rutgers University Project on Regional and Industrial Economics, Daniel Flaming and Mark Drayse / Economic Roundtable

This study examines how firms, workers, and regional economic development institution are dealing with the severe effects of defense downsizing in the Los Angeles region. Between 1988 and 1994 the Los Angeles region lost 127,000 jobs in defense-related industries, including aircraft, missiles, instruments, and electronics. The long economic slump set off by defense cuts has incited a major debate between the advocates of regional institution building and proactive economic development and those arguing for the laissez-faire approach of reducing taxes, wages, and environmental costs. 

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