Starting this week, the state will furlough most of its workers three days a month to help with the budget crisis. The resulting pay cuts are likely to have a big impact on the local economy. The governor is also talking about laying off thousands of state workers, which would further affect the local business and job markets. State workers can't spend what they don't make, and everything from restaurants to local cable television companies rely significantly on state worker spending.
More than 90,000 people in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo county are employed full-time by the state and the UC system.
This calculator lets you choose -- or predict -- the extent of state worker cuts, then displays the possible consequences of them. It defaults to the consequences of three furlough days and no widespread state layoffs -- the current situation. Results update automatically ...
Updated: Includes option of a fourth furlough day ...
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Also, read Bee reporter Dale Kasler's take on the local impact of cutting state jobs and pay.
Notes: This calculator includes cuts to only the state workforce, not any local government, school district (i.e., teachers) or private industry. Also, the lost wages, lost jobs and unemployment rates shown are calculations for the Sacramento region only. Some of the impact shown in the above calculations has already been felt locally since most state workers have been furloughed for two days since early February. While state worker layoffs are on the table, nobody is yet talking specifics. The governor in May discussed laying off about 2 percent of the state workforce; recently, gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman suggested cutting 10 percent of the state workforce. The governor may or may not have the authority to lay off the workforce of constitutional officers.
This calculator does not attempt to solve the state budget crisis, nor does it claim to unerringly predict the future. Economic conditions and budget decisions could affect all of the formulas used in the calculator, so these figures should be treated as estimates.
This calculator uses real 2008 wage and employment data from the State Controller's Office for every state worker in the region. To estimate wages lost due to furloughs, The Bee cut aggregate total state worker pay for the region by the percentage of annual hours that furloughs will erase. It excluded workers who are not yet furloughed: the California Highway Patrol; CDF fire stations; constitutional officers and UC and CSU campuses. Wages lost from layoffs assume that workers will stay in the region and take maximum unemployment benefits of $450 a week. To estimate the number of non state workers who could lose their jobs, The Bee assumed that the number of local unemployed would rise by one-tenth percent for every two-tenths percent drop in local GDP, which is consistent with past state and national employment and GDP trends. (Estimated lost wages were subtracted from the latest local GDP figures to calculate GDP percentage loss.) The unemployment rate calculations apply estimated total job losses to the May 2009 employment figures for the region.
Sources: State employee and payroll data for Placer, Yolo, El Dorado and Sacramento counties from the State Controller's Office; Unemployment data from the California Employment Development Department; Local Gross Domestic Product data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
--Breakdown of Sacramento region's state government workforce.
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