Improving California’s Unemployment Insurance Program

Aug 8, 2022 - Tax rates also go down if few workers become unemployed and get UI payments. (Under this practice, known as “experience rating, ” a business ’ annual tax rate can range from 1.5  percent to 6.2  percent depending on how many prior workers get UI benefits.)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4615

Effect of Returning to Historical Estimated Tax Payment Schedule

Feb 27, 2023 - Due to Divergence From Equal Payments, Great Recession Changes Led to Modest Shift. As a result of the divergence from equal payments discussed above, in practice, the 2008 and 2009 timing shifts yielded relatively small tax payment shifts.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4722

Fixing Unemployment Insurance

Dec 2, 2024 - The state distributed a total of $24  billion in state UI payments in 2020 —more than double the former peak from the Great Recession. (This amount does not include payments from the temporary federal UI programs that were the subject of widespread fraud.)
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4943

California’s Low-Wage Workers and Minimum Wage

Mar 11, 2024 - In this section, we aggregate data over this period to track cohorts of workers born in the same year to see how their rates of low-wage work change as they get older. Cohort Example. Consider, for example, workers born in 1981.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4878/2

Overview of Diversity Efforts in the Film Tax Credit Program

May 1, 2025 - The statute outlining DEIA provisions for the film tax credit states that the goals of diversity workplans and initiatives should be “broadly reflective of California ’s population, in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and disability status. ” To get a sense of how proportional the current labor force of tax credit recipients is relative to the population, Figure
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5036

Local Sales Tax Rebates in 2023-24

Sep 16, 2025 - Substantial Rebates in Many Counties … As shown in Figure  2, 2023-24 rebate payments varied across counties. In nine counties, rebates exceeded $5 per resident. In seven others, rebates ranged from $1 to $5 per resident.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5074

The 2022-23 Budget: Fuel Price and Other Fiscal Relief Options

May 12, 2022 - In comparison, providing tax refunds to vehicle owners would require several additional steps that could delay payments and increase administrative costs. Such steps would include collecting the necessary data from the Department of Motor Vehicles and selecting an entity to distribute payments.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4597

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

Feb 23, 2026 - Our analysis of these issues in the next two sections revolves around two overarching questions: How much should CDTFA spend on cannabis and tobacco enforcement? How should the state pay for these activities?
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5132

The 2026-27 Budget: California Competes Extension

Mar 18, 2026 - All three of these changes could have contributed to the trend shown in Figure  2 if (1)  The 25  percent rule was favoring smaller businesses above better-qualified applicants from larger firms, (2)  larger businesses provide better evidence on how the credit affects their decision-making, and (3)  larger firms are more likely to have, or participate in, job training programs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5162

The 2025-26 California Spending Plan: Other Provisions

Oct 16, 2025 - The budget package also included supplemental reporting language requiring a report —due on or before March  1, 2026, and annually thereafter for three years —on the problems the program was designed to address and how the funds were used.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5081