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 - 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 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

Evaluation of the Property Tax Postponement Program

Oct 8, 2018 - All else equal, a low ‑income person living in Santa Clara County is likely to spend more on housing than a person with the same income living in Imperial County. Participation PTP Historically Has Had Low Participation.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3885

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

Mar 6, 2019 - The administration also proposes renaming the credit to the “Cost of Living Refund ” (previously, the Governor ’s budget proposed renaming the credit the “Working Families Tax Credit ”). We describe each of the three major aspects of the Governor ’s proposal in more detail below.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3960

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 May Revision: Opportunity Zones

May 11, 2019 - A December 2017 federal law (known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act) established new tax benefits to encourage investment in certain economically distressed areas —called Opportunity Zones. States had discretion to identify Opportunity Zones based on federal guidance.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4038

Review of the California Competes Tax Credit

Oct 31, 2017 - A management consultant, for example, can live and work in California and have clients located anywhere in the world. (For many profession s, this tradability can vary significantly depending on the area of specialization within their field.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3709