A study produced for the U.S. Department of Labor found that 3.5% of California workers and 6.5% of New Yorkers were paid less than the minimum wage in 2011. That translates to 10.9% of low-wage earners in L.A. and 19.5% in N.Y. Using the Current Population Survey, the study, conducted by Eastern Research Group, concluded that 7,000 people in California were forced below the poverty line by minimum wage violations. The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) put that number at 41,000.   read more

The complaint, filed on behalf of three plaintiffs from the counties of Alameda, Sacramento and Orange, alleges that debt collector CorrectiveSolutions pretends to be the DA and “uses false and misleading threats of criminal prosecution to intimidate Californians who have written checks that are dishonored by the bank. . . . The company pays county district attorneys for the use of their seal and letterhead, thereby disguising its ordinary civil debt collection as law enforcement.”   read more

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that many of the 12,600 insurance agents haven’t been paid for months. Around 2,200 agents are owed around $2 million for shepherding Med-Cal patients through the system and the state doesn’t intend to pay them before January. Backlogs of payments back to June exist for agents who helped sign up small employers. They might get paid in December.   read more

The SEC warned of “the potential for fraud in microcap companies purportedly involved in Ebola prevention, testing, or treatment, noting that scam artists often exploit the latest crisis in the news cycle to lure investors into supposedly promising investment opportunities.” After Immunotech announced it was working on an Ebola drug in an October 21 newsletter, its daily average of 223,000 traded shares jumped to 28 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.   read more

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) blames Southern California Edison (SCE) for approving the design of new steam generators that ended up destroying the usefulness of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS). Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was blamed for the faulty design. On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) weighed these factors before deciding customers, not stockholders, should cover most of the debacle’s cost.   read more

It could be worse, and will be, if the state doesn’t change the way it collects the fines and fees, according to a report by the independent state Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO). Lack of incentive is only part of the problem. The collections programs are pretty lame. Paperwork on how much is collected and distributed is “incomplete and inconsistent.” Delinquent collections are miscalculated, collection practices are unevaluated and data on outstanding debt is sketchy.   read more

The contract, negotiated by California’s Department of General Services, smoothed out the volatility. But BP sold California gas at above-market prices, realizing a profit margin three times normal, according to the lawsuit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court. The lawsuit says BP charged the state 10 times what it was getting from other bulk purchasers.   read more

California students, on average, owe $20,340, compared to the national average of $28,400. Fifty-five percent of California students graduated with debt, which tied it for 36th place, according to the Project on Student Debt. No California schools made the Top 20 list of high-debt public colleges and universities, where student debt averaged between $33,950 and $48,850.   read more

Former PG&E senior vice president of regulatory affairs Thomas Bottorff left in September along with two other executives and a top PUC official after e-mails were released detailing suspicious contacts in the aftermath of the 2010 San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed eight people and leveled a neighborhood. Former PG&E CEO Peter Darby received a $34.8-million severance package six months after the blast.   read more

The project did not have a leader. The district did not have a good relationship with Microsoft, the software’s developer, resulting in unfixed bugs and missing functionality. “Staffing, training and stakeholder involvement for the implentation was insufficient,” so bottlenecks messed up everyone’s development schedule and forced a system rollout without proper testing. There were “red conditions” everywhere that should have triggered a stoppage. They didn’t.   read more

Despite outspending their political opponents 20-1, three Chevron-bankrolled candidates for the city council and one for mayor were defeated, giving progressives a 6-1 majority. Chevron spent about $72 per registered voter in the city of 107,000, blasting out TV ads, papering neighborhoods with mailers and decorating the town with billboards.   read more

Chevron claimed that the county should refund $3.5 million in property tax it paid since 2006 because the new drilling only preserved the land’s value, rather than increased it. “If this case had gone against us, and we could not put new construction on the assessment roll . . . in my opinion, this county would go broke very fast,” county Assessor-Recorder Jim Fitch told the Bakersfield Californian.   read more

The class-action lawsuit alleged that the practice of rearranging the debit card charges just to generate overdraft fees and misleading customers about it violated state laws. A customer with $100 in his account could charge nine $10 items before charging a $90 item. Instead of the $90 item generating a single $35 (or so) overdraft fee at the end of processing, it is processed first, triggering eight overdrafts for $280.   read more

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein accepted Stockton’s plan that raises taxes, reduces employee compensation and pays creditors a percentage owed, but does not disable the defined-benefit pension plan. Klein introduced that as a real possibility earlier in the month when he ruled that federal bankruptcy laws outranked state law, which requires cities to make good on their pension obligations to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS).   read more

More than 34,000 small donors in California were outspent by just 864 large donors, the 10th largest ratio of big donors to small donors in the country. Texas ranked No. 1 by having one single large donor outspend 8,767 small donors. Sixty-seven percent of California’s $43,911,097 in primary contributions came from big donors. Again, Texas was No. 1, with big donors accounting for 80% of contributions.   read more

The cost of smoking worked out to $487 per Californian, and $4,603 per smoker. The costs varied by locale, ranging from $374 per resident in Orange County to $1,002 in Lake County. Direct healthcare costs are responsible for 54.4%, or $9.8 billion, of total smoking costs. Loss of productivity from premature death accounted for 37.6% of the costs and lost productivity from illness was 7.9%.   read more