SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - While candidates vying to replace Gov. Gray Davis make California sound as if it's near economic ruin, the Golden State doesn't seem so forlorn when measured against the rest of the country.

"A lot of what we have been hearing is over-the-top rhetoric," said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. "It's not the end of days that some politicians are making it out to be."

The way the gubernatorial hopefuls portray it, California's taxes, housing prices and energy bills are overwhelming, jobs are evaporating, and disenchanted employers are fleeing to more accommodating states.

For example, California lost 275,000 nonfarm jobs, a 1.9 percent decline, from January 2001 through August. Over the same period, 2.67 million jobs evaporated nationally, a 2.0 percent decline.

The bursting of the high-tech bubble did hit California especially hard. And California prices for housing, workers' compensation insurance and electricity rank among the nation's highest, making it more difficult to live and run a business in the state.

But so far, there are few signs of a business backlash, if the number of new companies forming in California is any indication. Incorporations have risen to 7,722 per month this year, from 6,754 in 2001 and 5,595 in 1999.

"Despite the talk of business slowing in the state, despite the talk of businesses moving out, when you look at business incorporations, we're at an all-time high," said Michael Bernick, who runs the state's Employment Development Department.

Those businesses have yet to produce a net increase in jobs, another sore point in the recall campaign. But California's unemployment rate has not been rising as fast as that of the nation as a whole.

California's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 6.6 percent in August, up from 4.7 percent in January 2001. The swing in the national unemployment rate has been slightly higher, rising from 4.1 percent in January 2001 to 6.1 percent in August.

The last time California suffered through a prolonged slump, during the first half of the 1990s, things were worse here than in the rest of the country.

California's unemployment rate peaked at 9.7 percent in January 1993, reflecting deep cuts in defense spending that devastated the state's aerospace industry. At the same time, the national unemployment rate was 7.3 percent - a gap of 2.4 percentage points.

During the past three years, the difference between the California and national unemployment rate has never been wider than 1 full percentage point, reached last fall.

"What we are going through is part of a national problem, but a few politicians are taking the opportunity to blame the governor and Legislature for everything," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy.

California's taxes have become one of the hottest topics in the recall campaign as Republican candidates Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom McClintock complain the state demands an unreasonably large chunk of people's paychecks.

The actual numbers tell a less dramatic story - California's percentage of taxes and fees ranks 19th nationally, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators.

Still, taxes and state government fees devour 17 percent of California's personal income - more than the national average of 16.1 percent, the federation said, based on a study of taxes and fees collected in 2000, the most recent year for which complete data is available.

Some candidates, such as Arianna Huffington, think the richest Californians are undertaxed.

But the state's big earners already take a bigger hit than they would just about anywhere else in the country. Only Montana, at 11 percent, and Vermont, at 9.5 percent, have a higher top income tax bracket than California's, according to the Federation of Tax Administrators.

Since Proposition 13 capped property tax increases in 1978, businesses have been getting an ever-bigger break: Prop 13 has been more effective at holding down taxes on commercial properties than on homes.

Corporate tax receipts constitute about 9.4 percent of the state's general fund in the current budget, down from 14.4 percent in 1980-81, according to the California Budget Project.

The budget headaches that inspired the recall drive are not unique to California. Although no state faced the whopping $38 billion deficit California had to close, shortfalls have been pervasive.

Twenty-nine states pursued tax increases to help fill gaps in their fiscal 2004 budgets, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers - the biggest tax push at the state level since the association began tracking budget trends in 1979.

The gloom hanging over California largely reflects a manic-depressive tendency cultivated by the state's history of booms and busts, said Keith Raffel, chairman of UpShot Corp., a software company in Mountain View.

"When things are going well, we think things are always going to go well," he said, "and when things are going bad, we think they are going to remain bad forever."