The 2025-26 Budget: Food Assistance Programs

Feb 19, 2025 - CalFresh/CFAP caseload (as of November 2024) increased 60  percent since the beginning of 2019-20, although annual rates of growth have varied from year to year. Multiple factors likely contributed to this growth.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4971

The 2024-25 Budget: Food Assistance Programs

Feb 16, 2024 - CalSAWS was introduced in 2019 and, as of October 2023, all 58 counties use the system. The federal government helps manage an Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system which deposits monthly benefits for CalFresh and other human services pr ograms onto cards to be used at grocery and convenience store checkout counters.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4845

The 2024-25 Budget: Child Support

Feb 27, 2024 - Funding for LCSAs Background LCSA Administrative Funding Methodology Created in 2019-20. The 2019-20 budget included a new methodology to determine the appropriate annual funding amount for each LCSA.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4861

The 2026-27 Budget: In-Home Supportive Services

Mar 18, 2026 - As a result, in 2019 ‑20, the 2017 MOE was eliminated and replaced with the current IHSS MOE structure —referred to as the 2019 IHSS MOE. As seen in Figure  7 , the 2019 IHSS MOE reduced the base county costs in 2019 ‑20 to roughly $1.6  billion, decreasing IHSS county costs by roughly $300  million relative to 2018 ‑19.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5166

The 2026-27 Budget: Food Assistance Programs

Feb 18, 2026 - Able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) generally are limited to three months of CalFresh assistance in a three-year period unless they work or participate in qualifying activities for at least 20 hours per week.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5126

Trends in CalWORKs: Participant Characteristics

Jun 16, 2025 - According to CDSS, the 2019 and 2023 CalWORKs take‑up rates were about 58 percent and 54 percent, respectively.) The CalWORKs participation rate differs from the CalWORKs take‑up rate in that it considers all families with children statewide (including those who are not eligible for the program), while the take‑up rate focuses only on likely eligible families (for example, households that meet the income and categorical requirements for CalWORKs).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5057

The 2026-27 Budget: County Administration and H.R. 1 Implementation

Mar 5, 2026 - As part of its deliberations, the Legislature may wish to ask the administration to report on its plans for the $20  million made available to support county implementation of work requirements in CalFresh as part of the 2025 ‑26 spending plan.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5149

Implementing California’s Child Welfare Prevention Services Program

Jan 28, 2026 - Around 20 counties (especially smaller and more rural counties) also noted an overall shortage of service providers, in particular providers possessing the resources to deliver EBPs to model fidelity.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5106

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Human Services

Nov 21, 2025 - For example, expenditures for the home-based family care rate —namely the monthly care and supervision payments made to foster caregivers and for kinship and adoptive placements —are budgeted to increase by around $20  million General Fund ($33  million total funds) in 2025-26 (9  percent increase relative to 2024-25), due largely to the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5086/6

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Human Services

Nov 21, 2025 - These one-time appropriations result in a year-over-year increase of about $25  million General Fund (about 220  percent) in Fruit and Vegetable Pilot funding and a year-over-year decrease of about $2  million (about 20  percent) in Diaper and Wipe Distribution funding (as compared 2024-25).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5086/3