Workers’ comp is a high cost, definitely. I asked several of the subs who worked on my house in 2005 (after Arnie’s reform passed) about their WC costs. Every single guy said he paid 30% (or 35%, can’t remember now), of wages! So for every $100 he paid his worker, he had to pay an additional $30 to Workers’ Comp. Now, this isn’t just for a big employer. Even the driller and the painter with just 2 employees had to pay that same rate.

Remember docteur’s posts about his entitled land that he just sold a year or so ago? It took him 15 years to entitle that land, and God blessed him by making the timing so that he finished the process right at the top of the market and retired very nicely off his work. But that is an incredibly long time to get some land entitled.

So those are just some of the higher costs. Then you’ve got zoning restrictions, environmental laws, etc. Is some of that offset by non-payroll employees, i.e. illegal Mexican labor?

The sunshine tax just means that people in CA don’t get paid more to make up for these higher costs. Our higher living costs are a form of tax for the priviledge of the sunshine. After seeing all those freezing people chopping ice off their windshields in Oklahoma this week, I was glad to be in sunny San Diego.