Updating the California Necessities Index

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/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

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

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

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

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

Evaluating the Sale-Leaseback Proposal: Should the State Sell Its Office Buildings? [Publication Details]

Apr 27, 2010 - Over the lives of these buildings, we estimate the transaction would cost the state between $600 million and $1.5 billion. The Legislature will need to weigh how these costs compare to other alternatives for addressing the state’s budget shortfall.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/2261

An Analysis of Proposition 4: The Gann "Spirit of 13" Initiative [Publication Details]

Dec 1, 1979 - The proposition, which places Article XIIIB in the California Constitution, limits the growth in appropriations of both state and local governments to changes in the cost of living and population in order to control the spending levels established by California governments.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/3524