Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

I'm always curious in these things how they will cherry pick the data to achieve their narrative.

In 2018 California had 954,000 businesses[1] according to the Census bureau. If we take the "13,000 have left between 2009 and 2016" (why stop there?) that would represent nearly 1.4%. However the Hoover Institute doesn't actually tell you if they were "small business" or "regular businesses".

That can be important because there are nearly 4 million small businesses in the state[2] and a departure is a departure, small, medium, or large. If use 3.9 million as the total number of businesses that is just .3%.

Every year people argue "California taxes too much, businesses are leaving in droves" but that isn't supported by actual business license data nor employment data. Over the last 10 years California consistently has the largest economy of all 50 states.

Nobody likes taxes, and I personally don't like misleading articles.

[1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/CA

[2] https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/2018-Small-...

Those are all excellent points. Furthermore, the article does not mention any business moving INTO California. Surely there must have been some. What would be interesting is NET migration statistics.

Furthermore, between 2009 and 2016, 1,250,000 businesses were started in California [1] (and more than a million went out of business).

But at least wingnut welfare still seems to be a thriving business in California.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/web/cewbd/ca_table9.txt

That's my beef with this report too. Business leave and come all the time. It's important to clarify how many are created in the same period, and what types of business left/prospered.

As much as I wish California had a better check and balance in its government and particularly policies, the report does not necessarily show that California has lost its way.

> Over the last 10 years California consistently has the largest economy of all 50 states.

haha... that's not even a very good statistic... it has the 5th largest economy of all nations in the world.

...to conclude, California's a big economy. But it's not (at least superficially) outsized relative to other parts of the United States that contain similar populations.

https://github.com/RhysU/states

> In 2018 California had 954,000 businesses

> there are nearly 4 million small businesses in the state

I only glanced through the references but I didn't notice anything which would show me why there's such a large discrepancy there. What am I missing?

Looking at the census information, the first number is for establishments with employees. They apparently don't include single person businesses in that number. The census data also lists "total non-employer establishments" at 3.4 million.

Thank you, I obviously didn't catch on to that.

Yeah and doesn't California have Silicon Valley and Hollywood? Wake me up when Google and Universal leave California.

What if they just stop investing and build elsewhere?

Most Hollywood movies are already being filmed on the Vancouvers and Alabamas of the world, so in a sense they have already fled the burden of California's regulations and taxes. But of course the hypocrisy is strong on this field, and the people involved in this business are the first to demand more and more taxes. In the end, they can avoid it. The mere mortals that run a mom and pop business can't.

I can imagine people saying the same thing about Detroit 50 years ago.

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