During a recent trip to London, State Senate leader Kevin de León told members of the U.K. Parliament that California has “robust job growth that outpaces the rest of the nation.”
He made this claim while touting California’s leadership on clean energy.
It made us wonder: Is California really doing better on jobs than the rest of the country? Or was the senator stretching the truth.
"Overall, the statement is accurate," said Esmael Adibi. He's an economics professor at Chapman University.
He says California’s job growth rate was 3 percent in 2014, compared to the year before. That's a full percentage point higher than the country’s overall job growth rate.
"We are outperforming the U.S.," he said.
We took De Leon’s specific words — “outpacing the rest of the nation” — to mean California added jobs at a faster clip than the overall national average.
We asked De Leon's office to clarify this. His staff indicated the senator meant the nation as a whole.
But the claim could be read as meaning California’s doing better than every individual state on jobs, which isn’t true.
Five other states added jobs at a faster pace in 2014. They were: North Dakota, Nevada, Colorado, Florida and — you guessed it — Texas.
The senator’s claim still stands. But it could have used this clarification.
In the end, we rate the statement Mostly True.
You can read full versions of all our fact checks at politifactcalifornia.com.
This story was produced by Capital Public Radio