During the past 32 years, it has averaged about 2.9 percent growth per year, the report said. Critics of the report, however, say that as the retired population increases, growth in the work force will become flat. Without a substantial increase in productivity, economic growth will become impossible, they claim. The generation of workers who will be employed in 20 years will not make as much at their jobs, studies that have examined the issue suggest. One of those studies, by UCLA, forecasts that over the next 10 years most growth in employment will be in the service and trades field, which pay below-average wages.
Slowest growth is predicted in durable manufacturing and government, where jobs tend to pay better.
Last year, Connell produced a report on California's aging population and what impact it might have on the state's tax structure. There's been silence. I mentioned all this the other day at a retirement system board meeting and basically drew blank stares from my colleagues on the board. Not everyone, however, agrees that now is the time to restructure California's tax system based on fiscal projections that may never come to pass. While retirees may not pay as much in income taxes as they did when they were working, that doesn't mean they won't be paying other kinds of taxes, he pointed out.