BAY AREA’S OUTSIZED ROLE IN STATE FISCAL OUTLOOK
The state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office may want to grab a copy of our Bay Area Council Economic Institute’s recent Roadmap for Economic Resilience. In a report this week examining California’s fiscal outlook, the LAO anxiously wonders about our region’s economic resilience and the impact a downturn here might have on the California economy. It’s a topic we spend a lot time thinking about ourselves.
“California’s economy and the state budget now are quite reliant on the San Francisco Bay Area,” the LAO notes. It credits the Bay Area, in particular the tech sector, for leading the state’s job recovery through the Great Recession. And it finds that while our region is home to just 17 percent of the state’s population, we pay 36 percent of total state personal income taxes at a level per capita more than double the statewide average. The LAO report also pays close attention to the Bay Area’s growing housing crisis, which our Roadmap report cites as one of the key factors in deciding the region’s economic future.
The Roadmap, which was unveiled Nov. 6, offers a sweeping, new regional economic vision for strengthening the Bay Area’s competitiveness, broadening prosperity, and building resilience against economic swings. It outlines a series of proposed solutions for addressing our housing and traffic crises, streamlining regional governance, promoting the region economically, and closing the workforce gap between universities and employers. We’ll make sure to get a copy to the LAO.
