Santa Clara County Business, Economy & Jobs Articles

For a little more than a decade, students who enrolled at San Jose State University and the other California State University campuses could count on one thing in the uncertain years of higher education: They likely wouldn’t have to pay …

The Supreme Court has now overturned decades of precedent in a new ruling that bans affirmative action, the consideration of race in college admissions as a way to create campus diversity.

The first-in-the-nation state-appointed task force report contains hundreds of recommendations for reparation, including a proposal that the state apologize and make financial amends for slavery and decades of racist policies.

The California legislature is readying a $15.5 billion bond issue to address climate resiliency for voters to approve on the 2024 state ballot, after the budget shortfall forced billions in cuts to climate spending.

After weeks of negotiations, the governor and top Democrats in the Legislature say they have a budget deal. Legislators will start voting today on bills related to the agreement, which sets spending and policy across a wide range of issues …

As climate change continues to drive temperatures to new extremes, employees in many jobs face increasing risk of injury and death. Here’s what California is doing to take the heat off workers.

A California child care crisis could be coming if subsidies remain at current low levels in the state budget. Providers say home daycare businesses may need to close if increased help is not on the way.

Zoning laws that restrict new housing development cause environmental damage, racial and class segregation, and force people into cars creating traffic. Now, a new movement wants to abolish zoning in the United States.

A popular program doubles CalFresh benefits to buy fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets. It is among the California food benefit programs on the table in the budget negotiations between legislative leaders and Gov. Newsom.

Zoning laws determine what can be built and where. These laws have shaped California, but are they really just tools for social engineering? The history of zoning is closely tied to racial segregation, as well as the state's shortage of …

As groups representing landlords and real estate pour millions of dollars into political coffers to influence housing policy, tenant groups are celebrating recent victories.

Tenants complained about rent increases averaging 151% from Green Valley Corp., a Swenson Builders Company. Now, 20 of them will get a refund under a state rent control law.

State workers' say their lower salaries than the private sector were offset by pensions, better benefits, job security. Is the tradeoff still worth it?

More than 170,000 people are homeless in California. Some Democrats want to make the state the nation’s first to declare housing a human right with a state constitutional amendment, but opponents worry it would be costly.

As congressional factions volley responsibility for pandemic breakdowns, Silicon Valley’s home state leads off a new book about “why government is failing in the digital age.”

As extra pandemic benefits end, food banks say that they're becoming long-term supermarkets for Californians facing food insecurity. Several bills to boost CalFresh are before the Legislature, but the state budget deficit may get in the way.

The turmoil that drove Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank out of business, rocking the wider banking sector, has analysts bracing for the next possible crisis: the $20 trillion commercial real estate market.

A bill to ban caste discrimination in California brings a global conflict to the Legislature. While many South Asian groups support the measure, some say it could backfire.

California bans affirmative action in college admissions, but two pending Supreme Court decisions may go further than the current state law, which was passed as Prop 209 in 1996. Here’s what that could mean for the state.

The city this week announced with enthusiasm tentative agreements with three bargaining units, but the unions representing police dispatchers, building inspectors and park rangers account for a little more than just 7% of the contracts that end June 30.