California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has already started his 2028 presidential campaign — but his state has the highest unemployment rate in the United States.
As Breitbart News reported earlier this month, Newsom left California in the midst of over a dozen wildfires to travel to rural South Carolina, testing the waters for a presidential run in the state Democrats have promoted to the first in the list of primary contests.
However, while Newsom has led Democrats in criticizing President Donald Trump and other Republicans, his performance in office is a drag on his prospects. Last month, the San Francisco Chronicle reports, the state had the highest unemployment rate in the nation:
California’s unemployment rate rose slightly, by 0.1 percentage point, to 5.4% in June, tying Nevada for the highest rate in the U.S., according to new federal data released Friday.
The state lost a net 6,100 jobs, including 9,900 layoffs in business and professional services. Health care and government saw job gains, but other sectors all shrunk.
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California’s May jobs gains were also revised downwards to a 11,700 increase, down 6,000 jobs compared to a preliminary estimate of 17,700.
5.4% is not historically high; it is below the 5.5% that economists once believed was the “Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment” (NAIRU), the lowest rate possible before inflation would begin to rise.
Still, it points to the fact that the Golden State is underperforming relative to the rest of the country, which — even in deep-blue jurisdictions — has tended to avoid some of California’s more extreme left-wing policies.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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