In the decades after the Second World War, California achieved an iconic status. Hollywood productions portrayed the region as a virtual paradise, with glistening sandy beaches and perfect weather year round, construction and the aerospace industries were bombing. Jobs were plentiful, and they paid an ample living wage. Public schools were excellent and they became even better after the Russians launched the Sputnik satellite. John F. Kennedy launch NASA which in turn launched a race to safely put and man on the moon bring him back. California was the booming place to be, and the Beach Boys and Disneyland were a symbols of it all.
Apple Computers and IBM were launching the personal computer revolution and the fruit orchards of the southern San Francisco Bay Area were becoming Silicon Valley, and Stanford University and Cal-Tech were supplying armies of progressively trained college graduates with great new ideas. Everything was roses, and those roses grew beautifully in California.
However by the turn of the 21st century a few chinks were stating to show in paradise’s armor. government taxes were continuing to rise, the valleys adjacent to LA had filled with housing, the state was not building and expanding its freeway system as fast as the traffic was increasing. Crime was on the rise. The globalists mentality was outsourcing jobs fast and real wages were falling toward a mean subsistence level (paycheck-to-paycheck) existence. The costs of living were increasing, as were the welfare rolls, and ghettos of despair were forming in the older neighborhoods.
All That Glitters Is Not Gold
The sagging image of California did not change overnight. However many smart people were beginning to count the costs, and they were realizing that there were better places to live in states outside of California. The individual emigration trend started as a nobody-noticed-it demographics trend. Net migration was away form California.
The moving truck rental companies saw it. Those expatriate former Californians were tax payers who mostly had better paying upper middle calls jobs.
On the other hand, the many of the immigrants into California were government dependents who saw that the California welfare system paid better than similar welfare systems in other states. The immigrant pools also included foreign immigrants, legal or otherwise, from Mexico, or Central and South America and beyond who wanted the not so good job opportunities that California still offered them.
The burgeoning not-so-illegal drug trade brought criminal entrepreneurs, who recruited street gangs as distribution networks. These grey and black market merchants formed and connected with international cartels, and they expanded their product lines to include the neo-slavery trade of human trafficking of vulnerable children and young adults. Auto theft of new and trophy status cars became a growth industry of its own.
On top of all of this sits California’s politically insoluble problem of homelessness hobos.
Most People Can Count the Costs for Themselves
According to the US Census Bureau, in 2010, some 129,239 more people left California than moved to it. That fact was 93,915 in 2011, 73,345 in 2012, 96,202 in 2013, 79,340 in 2014, 129,233 in 2015, 142,932 in 2016, 137,895 in2017, 190,122 in 2018, and 173,347 in 2019.
In the decade between 2010 and the end of 2019 the state of California lost 1.25 million tax paying former residents. The number of California residents peaked just below 40 million people.
This California Exodus had become an ongoing trend of residents leaving the state for other U.S. states or Mexico, primarily due to high living costs, crime, and other quality-of-life issues. That’s only the exodus of individuals who were voting with their feet.
Large, Fortune 500 Companies Can Also Do-The-Math
Between 2016 and 2019 numerous large California based companies also did the math. The prudent and professional management of C-suites of those companies had a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders that demanded that the cold facts of those figures could not be ignored. The inescapable realization was that the commercially over taxed and over regulated state was an adversarial environment in which it was difficult or worse to try to do business.
The following is list of the larger companies that flew the coup of California over the time period listed.
2016
Jacobs Engineering Group, now known as Jacobs Solutions, is an American company that provides engineering, design, construction, and maintenance services, as well as technical, professional services as well as scientific and specialty consulting across various sectors, including water, transportation, and healthcare. Jacobs Solutions services a broad range of clients globally, including companies, organizations, and government agencies.
In 1947, the Jacobs Engineering Group was established with its headquarters located in Pasadena, California. In 2016 the increasingly onerous and adversarial business environment and high overall cost of doing business in California cause the company to endure the expense of relocating its headquarters to Dallas, Texas.
As of 2025 Jacobs Solutions employed over 43,000 people, and in 2025 they produced a total of $12.39 B in revenues.
Jamba Juice (now just, Jamba) is an American quick-service restaurant and juice bar chain that sells blended fruit and vegetable juices, smoothies, and other food products. The first Jamba location, originally named Juice Club, opened in 1990 in San Luis Obispo, California.
In May of 2016 Jamba moved its headquarters from Emeryville, California to the Dallas area suburb of Frisco, Texas . The company is owned by GoTo Foods and has over 850 locations across the United States and internationally. Jamba locations employ over 5,000 people, and there annual revenue is over $75 M
2017
Toyota Motor North America (TMNA – Symbol: TYO) is the North American subsidiary of the Japanese company . Toyota was founded in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. The company was established in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works.
Toyota’s operations in North America began in 1957 when it established its headquarters in Torrance, California. TMNA handles their North American manufacturing, vehicle sales, servicing, and parts system.
in 2017 the management of TMNA realized that it was no long smart money to be located in the adversarial business environment of California. TMNA moved their operations to Plano, TX (a suburb located northeast of Dallas). TMNA directly employs over 49,000 people and their total revenue in 2024 was $284 billion dollars.
Nestlé USA is the American subsidiary of the Swiss company Nestlé. The parent company was originally founded in the 1860s in Switzerland to produce condensed milk and its baby formula products. Besides its Nestlé labeled products Nestlé USA is also the owner of DiGiorno, Toll House, and Coffee mate.
Nestlé USA was originally headquartered in Glendale, California. In 2017 it left California and moved its headquarters to Arlington, Virginia. Nestlé USA employs over 48,000 people and its annual revenue in 2023 was $111.03 B.
2018
Bechtel Corporation is a privately held American engineering, procurement, construction and project management company founded in San Francisco, California in 1898. As of 2022, the Engineering News-Record ranked Bechtel as the second largest construction company in the United States, following Turner Construction. Bechtel has completed 25,000 major construction projects in 160 countries since its founding.
In 2018 the behemoth Bechtel Corporation moved its headquarters from California to Reston, Virginia, near Washington DC. Jack Futcher, the company’s chief operating officer said “Consolidating the corporate leadership and operations in Reston will enable the company to thrive in the current fast-paced business environment — one that demands faster and seamless decision-making, integration and collaboration.”
Bechtel has over 50,000 employees as of May 2025. Bechtel’s annual revenue was reported to be $58.2 billion in 2024.
2019
McKesson Corporation (stock ticker symbol: MCK) is a giant publicly traded American company that distributes pharmaceutical products and provides health information technology, medical supplies, and health management tools. The company delivers a third of all pharmaceutical products used or consumed in North America. McKesson provides extensive network of infrastructure for the healthcare industry and was an early adopter of technologies, including barcode scanning for distribution, pharmacy robotics, and RFID tags.
McKesson’s forerunner was founded in as a partnership in 1828. In 1967 it moved its headquarters to San Francisco, where it thrived and expanded for decades, however by 2019 the business climate in California had change so significantly that it moved its headquarters to the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.
McKesson Corp. employs over 80,000 people and in 2024 it enjoyed a revenue of 308.9 billion dollars, which makes McKesson the ninth Largest company in the United States by revenue.
Charles Schwab is an American multinational financial services company. It offers individual and commercial banking. Its investing and related services including consulting, and wealth management advisory services to individual, retail and institutional clients. The company’s headquarters were founded in San Francisco, California.
In 2019 they left California after it agreed to buy Omaha-based company TD Ameritrade. The chairman and founder is Charles Schwab who singled out the business climate in California as motivation for the move: “The costs of doing business here are so much higher than some other place” he told Forbes. “We’ve had an extremely positive experience in Texas,” a spokesperson from Schwab said in a statement to Business Insider. “From day one, the energy, innovation, and welcoming spirit of North Texas has far exceeded our expectations.”
Charles Schwab is now headquartered in Westlake, Texas. As of 2024 Charles Schwab directly employed 32,100 people, and it enjoys a total revenue of 23.92 billion dollars.
California’s tax base was collapsing. That means the total cost of government will need to be born by fewer tax payers who were being forced to support an ever increasing pool of government revenue consumers.
- 01 -- Newsom Means Well, But . . .
- List Item #3
