Overview of Diversity Efforts in the Film Tax Credit Program

May 1, 2025 - Although below ‑the ‑line positions make up the large majority of workers in the motion picture industry, some studies have documented a relationship between the gender/race/ethnicity of executive positions (such as director/producer) and the downstream diversity of cast and crew for that production.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5036

The 2025-26 Budget: California’s Film Tax Credit

Feb 28, 2025 - California is also the only program in our comparison that does not allow any so called “above ‑the ‑line spending, ” such as wages for directors, writers, and actors, to count toward expenditures for credit purposes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5000

Evaluation of a Tax Exemption for Zero-Emission Buses

Apr 15, 2024 - The number of ZEBs purchased in advance of the ICT time lines. The ICT ’s minimum ZEB purchase requirements began in 2023, while bus fleet data currently are available through 2022. As a result, these two performance indicators are effectively identical.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4890

The 2023-24 Budget: California's Film Tax Credit

Feb 28, 2023 - This is out of line with economic research discussed above which suggests tax credits influence location decisions of only a portion of recipients. Two studies that better reflects this research finding suggest tha t each $1 of film credit results in $0.20 to $0.50 of state revenues (Owens and Rennhoff [2020]), Rickman and Wang [2020]).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4713

Fixing Unemployment Insurance

Dec 2, 2024 - UI Take ‑Up Rate Is In ‑Line With Other State and Federal Benefit Programs. The national UI take ‑up rate among eligible unemployed workers is roughly similar to estimated statewide take ‑up rates in other programs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4943

Improving California’s Unemployment Insurance Program

Aug 8, 2022 - The department ’s phone lines were routinely overwhelmed by the number of frustrated callers. These failures caused hardship for unemployed workers and their families, held back the economic recovery during both periods, and spurred frustration among Californians with their state government.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4615

Evaluating State Economic Stimulus Proposals

Feb 1, 2021 - Our report also highlighted key areas of uncertainty and additional factors the legislature should consider beyond the bottom line economic results of the analysis —such as opportunity costs and the policy objective of the program which was to strategically counter aggressive film tax credits offered by other states.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4331