April 4, 2017

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 CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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