The 2024-25 Budget: Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development

Feb 20, 2024 - We estimate the Governor ’s budget predicts the state ’s 2024-25 budget will need to address a $58 billion deficit . In December, our office predicted a somewhat large deficit of $68 billion . Since then, recent data has continued to point to the budget problem being larger than the Governor’s budget assumes.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4846

Local Sales Tax Rebates in 2023-24

Sep 16, 2025 - One-quarter of Californians live in a jurisdiction that paid rebates in 2023-24. Focusing on these areas, Figure  3 displays the distribution of rebate payments across jurisdictions, weighted by the number of residents.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5074

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - We estimate th at model using all 24 months of data from 2022 and 2023. Estimate Characteristics by Weighting Respondents. We construct the estimates in the figures using workers who provided a wage response in 2023.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/4

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - Over the last decade, two statutes —Chapter  351 of 2013 (AB  10, Alejo) and Chapter  4 of 2016 (SB  3, Leno) —gradually have increased California ’s statewide minimum wage from $8 per hour to $16 per hour.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878

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

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - As shown in Figure  3, although California ’s nominal minimum wage has doubled over the last decade, the hourly wage gap between low-wage (10 th percentile) workers and average (median) workers has barely changed over that period.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/3

Fixing Unemployment Insurance

Dec 2, 2024 - The state entered the pandemic with $3  billion in the UI trust fund. The pandemic resulted in a historic surge in unemployment and, as a result, unprecedented state UI costs. The state distributed a total of $24  billion in state UI payments in 2020 —more than double the former peak from the Great Recession.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4943

The 2025-26 Budget: CDTFA’s Tobacco Programs

Feb 14, 2025 - In contrast to inspections and citations, the number of tobacco seizures grew by 3  percent. CDTFA reports that it has developed a more targeted approach, focusing the diminishing number of inspections on retailers who are more likely to be out of compliance.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4966

The 2022-23 Budget: Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development Proposals

Feb 11, 2022 - Consequently, Visit California has increased its net assets from $20  million at the beginning of 2019 ‑20 to $58  million by the end of 2021 ‑22. Additional State Funding for Marketing Appears Unnecessary.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4529