The 2022-23 Budget: Assessing Proposals to Address Unemployment Insurance Fraud

Feb 15, 2022 - According to Strike Team, Focus on Fraud Provided Little Benefit and Led to Backlog. The  state ’s longstanding institutional focus on fraud led staff to manually scrutinize roughly 40  percent of all UI applicants ’ identity information.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4542

Refocusing the Workers’ Compensation Subsequent Injury Program

Jul 10, 2025 - Workers with more serious conditions would meet this higher standard —for instance, a previous workplace back injury that led to surgery, a severe congenital condition, or a partial limb amputation. In most cases, common, chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, early diabetes, or age ‑related degenerative changes would not meet this threshold.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5062

The 2021-22 May Revision: Golden State Stimulus 2

May 18, 2021 - The pandemic has led to devastating job losses, which have been concentrated among California ’s low-wage workers. As of March  2021, more than 80  percent of unemployed workers live in households with below-average annual income.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4435

A Review of the CalSTRS Funding Plan: CalSTRS Funding Plan Relies on Abstract Calculation

Feb 2, 2016 - Because pension benefits are based on salaries, these higher salaries would have in turn led to more generous benefits, offsetting the effects of the highe r contributions to some degree. Nevertheless, compared to the way in which CalSTRS is currently administering the calculation, this different choice would seemingly result in a different state share of CalSTRS ’ unfunded liabilities and a correspondingly different district share.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3333

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Units 10 (Professional Scientists) and 18 (Psychiatric Technician)

Sep 9, 2025 - This disagreement has led to challenging labor relations between the state and state scientists for more than a decade. We discuss these challenges in our 2024 analysis of the most recently ratified Unit 10 MOU.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5073

Revisiting the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund Insolvency

Sep 30, 2016 - Below, we describe in greater detail the conditions that led the UI trust fund to exhaust its reserves and ultimately require the state to take on loans to continue benefit payments. Trust Fund Reserves Ran Out in 2009.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3503

The 2019-20 Budget: California Spending Plan—Other Provisions

Oct 17, 2019 - Prior to PAGA, penalties associated with labor law violations could only be imposed as a result of a state-led investigation conducted by the Labor Commissioner. The intent of PAGA is to improve enforcement of the state ’s labor laws by offering an alternative to state-led enforcement that could be used, for example, when the state lacks the resources to enforce all alleged labor law violations.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4101

The 2024-25 Budget: State Employee Compensation

Mar 21, 2024 - We think there is merit in an exercise led by the Department of Finance (DOF) to identify inefficiencies in the state budget; however, we do not think that the proposed reduction will achieve the level of savings assumed in the budget for 2024 ‑25.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4888

The 2017-18 Budget: Increased Staffing for Labor Standards Enforcement

Mar 3, 2017 - The DLSE has identified several issues that have led to this level of vacancies, including problems with administrative challenges that prevented hiring for certain key investigative classifications for a period of time, infrequent examinations and small hiring lists, and increased retirements.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/3602

The 2022-23 Budget: Supply Chain and Port Infrastructure Proposals

Feb 15, 2022 - Proposal Seems Reasonable to Address Current Issues Leading to Increased Wait Times for Commercial Drive Tests … We find that the proposal is a reasonable approach to addressing the two primary factors that have led to increased wait times.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4540