California's Most and Least-Recession Recovered Cities

Date: September 30, 2015

San Francisco and San Jose are among the nation’s cities that recovered the best from the Great Recession.

WalletHub released a study comparing the 150 largest U.S. cities to measure how local economies are doing and how much recovery remains to be done. The cities were evaluated with 17 key economic metrics under two categories: Employment &and Earning Opportunities, and Economic Environment.

The recession officially ended six years ago. And while many cities across the country have completely recovered—or even surpassed their pre-recession economic levels—others have continued to struggle. Fourteen municipalities have declared Chapter 9 bankruptcy since 2008, and others face increasing crime rates, decline in school rates, falling property values, collapse of local administrations and business shutdowns.

The 17 factors included unemployment rate, inflow of college-educated workers, ratio of part-time to full-time jobs, median household income, labor force participation rate, median home price, foreclosure rate, poverty rate, percentage of households receiving public assistance, population size, bankruptcy, number of businesses, average Experian VantageScore credit score, consumer non-housing debt, violent crime rate, gross metropolitan product and Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing.

Here are the top 15 cities that made the list in California, as well as their overall rank in the list from most to least recovered:

1. San Francisco (No. 8)

2. San Jose (No. 13)

3. Oxnard (No. 15)

4. Oakland (No. 28)

5. Garden Grove (No. 44)

6. Fremont (No. 49)

7. Santa Rosa (No. 50)

8. Sand Diego (No. 62)

9. Santa Ana (No. 70)

10. Irvine (No. 72)

11. Chula Vista (No. 82)

12. Los Angeles (No. 83)

13. Long Beach (No. 84)

14. Sacramento (No. 87)

15. Bakersfield (No. 89)

To see the full study, visit WalletHub.

Related Content: Small Business News | California | Economy

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