The 2026-27 Budget: Proposed Zero-Emission Vehicle Incentive

Feb 24, 2026 - Governor’s Proposal Proposes $200   Million and Budget Trailer Legislation to Create New ZEV Incentive Program. The Governor proposes $200  million on a one ‑time basis ($115  million from GGRF and $85  million from APCF), along with associated budget trailer legislation to create a new incentive program for light ‑duty ZEVs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5140

Addressing Chronic Vacancies in Prison Mental Health Care

Feb 23, 2026 - Operating excess inpatient beds at this scale costs the state over $200 million each year and requires that the state maintain many mental health positions more than the projections show are necessary.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5134

Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program Review

Dec 2, 2025 - As  described more fully below, OSDS has investigated over 200  cases of potential noncompliance and program abuse. The most commonly reported type of alleged program abuse was underutilization. Most  cases resulted in a finding of no violation, but about one third resulted in a penalty or sanction of some  kind.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5095

Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Program Review [Publication Details]

Dec 2, 2025 - As required by Chapter 80 of 2020 (SB 588, Archuleta), this brief reviews California’s Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise (DVBE) program. Specifically, it focuses on policies and practices designed to prevent program abuse and noncompliance.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5095

The 2026-27 Budget: Proposed Zero-Emission Vehicle Incentive [Publication Details]

Feb 24, 2026 - In this piece, we review the Governor's proposal to provide $200 million to create a new point-of-sale incentive program for light-duty zero-emission vehicles.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5140

The 2026-27 Budget: Community College Facilities

Mar 17, 2026 - Of the project proposals that districts submitted for 2026-27, 7 out of 27 eligible modernization projects (26  percent) are included in the Governor ’s budget, compared to 3 out of 8 eligible growth projects (38  percent).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5159

The 2026-27 Budget: Cap-and-Invest Expenditure Plan

Feb 10, 2026 - (The Governor also proposes providing $85 million from the Air Pollution Control Fund—similarly freed up from undoing the previously‑approved MVA fund transfer—to support this new ZEV program, for a total of $200 million.)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5114

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - We apply this method to monthly CPS data from January 2022 through December 2023 to construct the estimates that appear in Figures 3 through 7 in the post Is California’s Minimum Wage High, Low, or Somewhere in Between?
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/4

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - Figure  3 shows that most low-wage workers live in households without any children under 18. Roughly 20  percent live with one child, 15  percent with two children, and fewer than 10  percent with three or more children.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/1

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - As shown in Figure  3, our estimates suggest that the share of workers in low-wage jobs declines by more than one-third between the ages of 25 and 32. This decline suggests that a substantial share of workers spend just a handful of years in low-wage jobs before moving on to mid-to-high-wage jobs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/2