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 2025-26 Budget: Food Assistance Programs

Feb 19, 2025 - Figure  2 shows CalFresh/ CFAP caseload increased over the last five years. 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.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4971

The 2026-27 Budget: In-Home Supportive Services

Mar 18, 2026 - The 2019 IHSS MOE was also set to increase annually by (1)  the counties ’ share of costs from locally negotiated wage increases and (2)  an annual adjustment factor of  4  percent. Figure 7
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5166

The 2026-27 Budget: Streamlining California’s Affordable Housing Funding System

Mar 6, 2026 - Such an approach, though, would work at cross ‑purposes with the state ’s policy goals of (1)  reducing the number of places and times a developer must apply and (2)  no longer potentially having scenarios in which a project is approved by one state entity but rejected by another.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5154

The 2026-27 Budget: Child Welfare

Mar 3, 2026 - The 2026-27 Budget: Child Welfare Full Implementation Underway CWS ‑CARES Nearly $2 billion provided over life of project, including $180 million in 2026 ‑27 included in Governor ’s budget. Statewide launch of version 1 planned for October 2026.
https://lao.ca.gov/publications/report/5147

The 2026-27 Budget: Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP) Program

Mar 3, 2026 - Since the Great Recession, as seen in Figure  2, grants for individuals and couples have been increased four times —in 2016-17 (by 2.76  percent), 2021-22 (by 23.95  percent), 2022-23 (by 10.3  percent), and 2023-24 (by 9.2  percent).
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5148

The 2026-27 Budget: Food Assistance Programs

Feb 18, 2026 - Based on the state ’s most recently measured payment error rate of 11  percent, the state would have a 15  percent share of CalFresh benefit costs, resulting in about $2  billion in new annual costs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5126

The 2024-25 Budget: Child Support

Feb 27, 2024 - Given we estimated the Governor ’s budget solved a $58  billion budget problem —and revenues continue to deteriorate —the administration likely will not implement the full passthrough to current CalWORKs families as part of the May Revision.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4861

Implementing California’s Child Welfare Prevention Services Program

Jan 28, 2026 - Ultimately, 51 counties and 2 Title IV ‑E tribes opted to participate and are receiving the one ‑time state block grant dollars. To participate, DSS required counties to prepare CPPs for approval by DSS.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5106

Trends in CalWORKs: Participant Characteristics

Jun 16, 2025 - As shown in Figure  2 , California ’s official individual and family (with children under age 18) poverty rates fluctuated over the last two decades. Official poverty rates are based on federal poverty levels (FPL), which are income thresholds under which a family is considered to be in poverty.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5057