Comparing Options to Raise and Lower Taxes [Publication Details]

Mar 24, 2026 - This report lays out various options to raise and lower taxes in California and offers a comparative evaluation of those options in the areas of budgeting, economy, taxpayer experience, progressivity, and fairness.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5170

The 2026-27 Budget: CDTFA’s Cannabis and Tobacco Programs

Feb 23, 2026 - Instead, the right number of inspections depends on costs and benefits —some of which, like deterring illegal activities and promoting fair competition, can be very difficult to quantify. The Governor ’s proposed level of spending on cannabis and tobacco enforcement is just one among a range of reasonable policy options available to the Legislature.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5132

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - To assess housing affordability for minimum-wage workers, we compare monthly earnings for full-time workers making the main minimum wage in each county to HUD ’s estimate of “fair market rent ” for housing in that county.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/3

The 2025-26 Budget: Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development

Mar 18, 2025 - Some research provides fairly good evidence that California Competes encourages recipients to make new investments in California. We suspect that this efficacy is related to several features of the program.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5018

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

Feb 28, 2025 - As shown in Figure 1, California’s motion picture production workforce is by far the largest in the United States, over 2.5 times the size of its largest competitor (New York), and has held fairly steady in size over the last two decades.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5000

Fixing Unemployment Insurance

Dec 2, 2024 - Figure  8 shows how this would play out if contributions and benefits continue to track with historical trends over the next two decades. As the figure shows, we do not expect the state to achieve solvency without the federal surcharge.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4943

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

Feb 11, 2022 - Federal agencies may be better situated to play a coordinating or incentivizing role. The beneficiaries would primarily be private, for ‑profit companies. We note that if adopting common data standards would significantly alleviate supply chain congestion, there would be a clear private ‑sector interest in paying to implement the recommendations using their own  funds.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4529

The 2022-23 Budget: Supply Chain and Port Infrastructure Proposals

Feb 15, 2022 - Federal agencies may therefore be better situated than the state to play a coordinating or incentivizing role. Moreover, the primary beneficiaries of adopting common data standards would primarily be private, for ‑profit companies.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4540

The 2021-22 Budget: Business Tax Incentives

Jan 28, 2021 - This suggests that, despite a fair amount of interest among businesses, the credit could have been set at a higher value without exhausting the $ 100   m illion allocation. Recommendation Expand Governor ’s Proposal.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4327