Unemployment in California Is Pretty Low. It’s Also Pretty High.

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This is not motivated by anything in particular. I just happened to come across it last night:

January data for all 50 states is here. I chose to highlight California because it’s big and diverse and I happen to live there. There’s no special point I want to make except for the fact that a single state or national-level unemployment rate hides a lot of detail. Here in California, the Bay Area is fine. San Diego is fine. Los Angeles is fine. Sacramento is fine. But El Centro and Fresno and Santa Cruz and Chico aren’t all that fine (though some of this seasonal). It’s just one reason why the politics of inland California are so different from the politics of the 50-mile coastal strip that everyone thinks of as “California.”

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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