Updating the California Necessities Index

Aug 14, 2025 - Therefore, any measure that requires statistics on the prices of a small set of goods in metropolitan areas —which includes options A, B, and C —may be at higher risk to future BLS publication changes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5065

Updating the California Necessities Index [Publication Details]

Aug 14, 2025 - Recent changes were made to the publication of statistics required to calculate the California Necessities Index, which is used to adjust certain benefit rates and cost-of-living adjustments. In this brief, we provide details on the changes and evaluate alternatives for the index that require only currently available data and conform to the original intent of the index.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5065

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - Most Low-Wage Workers Live With at Least One Other Worker. Compared to mid-to-high-wage workers, low-wage workers are much less likely to live in households with exactly two workers and much more likely to live in households with three or more workers.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/1

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - Single parents with one, two, or three children live in one-bedroom, two-bedroom, or three-bedroom apartments, respectively. An adult couple without children live in a studio/efficiency. An adult couple with one or two children live in a two-bedroom apartment.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/4

Local Sales Tax Rebates in 2023-24

Sep 16, 2025 - One-quarter of Californians live in a jurisdiction that paid rebates in 2023-24. Focusing on these areas, Figure  3 displays the distribution of rebate payments across jurisdictions, weighted by the number of residents.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5074

The 2019-20 Budget: Overview of the Governor's Budget

Jan 14, 2019 - The largest Proposition  98 augmentation in the Governor ’s budget is $ 2  b illion for LCFF, which covers a 3. 46  p ercent cost ‑of ‑living adjustment. The Governor ’s budget also includes a few augmentations designed to improve support for districts not meeting the goals of their Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAP) —another linchpin reform of the prior administration.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3916

California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences [Publication Details]

Mar 17, 2015 - California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences [Publication Details] Infographic Description: Living in decent, affordable, and reasonably located housing is vitally important to every Californian.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/3214

The 2019-20 Budget: Analysis of Proposed Earned Income Tax Credit Expansion

Mar 6, 2019 - Excluding the EITC, the Governor proposes $2. 7  b illion in new ongoing spending in 2019 ‑20, growing to $3. 5  b illion over time. We suggest the Legislature consider an EITC expansion relative to the ongoing spending proposals introduced by the Governor.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3960

Do Communities Adequately Plan for Housing?

Mar 8, 2017 - Households unwilling or unable to pay these high costs are forced to live somewhere else. Households forced to live somewhere else do not show up in California’s past demographic trends and therefore are not reflected in RHNA calculations.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3605

Income Mobility in California Across Generations

Jan 4, 2017 - These Measures Are Not Adjusted for Cost of Living. Throughout this series, we use estimates of income mobility that have not been adjusted for the cost of living. With a few exceptions, such an adjustment does not substantially affect these estimates.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3518