Recent iir_cpl items

California Nickel Prior Enhancement and Recent Reforms: A Snapshot

Tue, 12 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sentence enhancements are widely used in California and can greatly increase an individual’s prison sentence, which in turn increases the size of the state’s prison population at a given time as people are incarcerated for longer periods.1 Proposition 8, passed by voters in 1982, provided the first major addition to sentence enhancements in California since the passage of the Determinate Sentencing Act of 1976 (Figure 1). This law created what is colloquially known as the “nickel prior.” As originally written, if a person had previously been convicted of a serious felony offense, the enhancement added an additional five years onto any sentence for a new serious offense,2 regardless of when the earlier conviction had occurred.3 This fact sheet highlights patterns in the use of nickel prior enhancements for people admitted to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) before and after Senate Bill 1393 (SB 1393) took effect in 2019.4 As of August 2023,...

Solid Ground Year One Process Evaluation

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

On any given night, nearly 60,000 people experience homelessness in Los Angeles County.1 Although the County has successfully navigated homeless individuals into available housing and other services in recent years, inflows have outpaced exits to permanent housing. Between 2018 and 2019, despite the influx of Measure H-funded2 services, the homeless population in Los Angeles County grew by 12%.3 Although Van Nuys contains a relatively small portion of the overall population experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County, Van Nuys has also experienced an increase in homelessness in recent years. In 2017, 589 people in Van Nuys experienced homelessness.4 In 2019, that number increased by nearly 30% to 765 people.2 In addition, compared to Los Angeles County as a whole, Van Nuys has a higher percentage of rent-burdened individuals. In 2017, 66.8% of individuals in Van Nuys were rent burdened (i.e., spent more than 30% of their monthly income on rent and utilities). In Los Angeles...

766 San Francisco Residents may be Eligible for Referral to CARE Court

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In 2022, California passed the CARE Court Law. Eight of California's 58 counties, including San Francisco and Los Angeles, are working to implement the law in 2023, with the remaining counties following in subsequent years. This brief estimates how many people in San Francisco may be eligible for referral to the CARE Court, based on an analysis of people who are already receiving urgent and emergent care services. This brief uses data from San Francisco’s Coordinated Case Management System (CCMS) linked to data from the San Francisco Sherif's Office and San Francisco District Attorney's Office.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Expirations of Pandemic Jobless Programs Caused an Unprecedented Drop in Access to UI

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

At the start of the pandemic, Congress temporarily expanded Unemployment Insurance (UI) programs through the federal CARES Act In this report, we mainly focus on Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which expanded the weeks of UI eligibility This and other emergency provisions were set to expire on September 4, 2021, which is commonly referred to as a “benefts clif ” However, policymakers in some states chose to end these programs before that date This policy report evaluates the impact the expansion and expiration of these programs had on the US labor market using data from the U S Department of Labor, the Current Population Survey, and California’s Employment Development Department Using national data, we fnd the benefts clif caused a dramatic drop in the proportion of unemployed workers that are covered by UI, which was three times as large as a similar clif at the end of the Great Recession To measure coverage, we focus on the UI recipiency rate, which is...

Household Mobility and Mortgage Rate Lock

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Rising interest rates can create "interest rate lock" for homeowners with fixed rate mortgages, who can hold onto their low rates as long as they stay in their homes but would have to take on new mortgages with higher rates if they moved. We show mobility rates fell in 2022-2023 for homeowners with mortgages, as market rates rose. There were no such declines for homeowners without mortgages or for renters, and the decline is not explained by changes in home values. Overall, our estimates imply that rising interest rates reduced mobility by 15% for households with mortgages.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

https://www.capolicylab.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Solid-Ground-Year-3-Process-Evaluation.pdf

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Solid Ground homelessness prevention pilot was started in 2018, with a goal of serving families in Van Nuys, California (zip code 91405) who may be at risk of homelessness but who do not qualify for the homelessness prevention services provided by the Los Angeles County homelessness services sector.1 The pilot is administered by New Economics for Women (NEW), a nonprofit that administers a FamilySource Center. FamilySource Centers are located in high-need areas and are designed to assist low to moderate-income families with a continuum of services, including financial counseling and referrals to community resources. While Solid Ground was originally conceived as a twoyear pilot, it was extended and NEW continues to operate it. The Solid Ground Program, which was previously administered by the Housing Department, now falls under the purview of The Community Investment for Families Department (CIFD) and since 2021, they have created seven additional Solid Ground homelessness...

Providing Early Legal Counsel Reduces Jail Time and Improves Case Outcomes

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When someone is arrested and cannot afford bail or a private lawyer, they stay in jail and have to wait several days before they are assigned a public defender at arraignment. This time in jail imposes legal, social, and economic costs, from a higher chance of conviction to loss of employment or wages. Low-income individuals bear the brunt of these costs because many cannot afford to post bail to secure their own release, nor can they afford to hire a lawyer to negotiate their release. The County of Santa Clara Public Defender’s Office designed a program to address these problems by providing legal counsel to low-income people shortly after their arrest. In early 2020 they piloted the Pre-Arraignment Representation and Review (PARR) program using a rotating schedule that offered PARR services one day per week. This quasirandom implementation enabled the research team to estimate the impact receiving PARR services had on release and case outcomes. Participation in the program...

Solid Ground Year Three A Process Evaluation of Solid Ground, a Family Homelessness Prevention Program Piloted by New Economics for Women in Van Nuys, California 91405

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Do Time-Limited Subsidy Programs Reduce Homelessness for Single Adults?

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Over half a million people experience homelessness in the United States each year. The policy response has been to provide short-term solutions, like shelters, as well as long-term housing solutions, such as housing subsidies or permanent supportive housing. This policy brief and related working paper focus on time-limited subsidy (TLS) programs, often referred to as Rapid Re-housing (RRH). TLS programs help individuals move into market rentals and financially support their tenancy, with typical two-year time limits. Our study estimates the impact of TLS over a four-year period for 3,677 adults who were enrolled in TLS in Los Angeles County. Sixty-two percent of TLS participants received the intended financial assistance to move into a rental unit. Our study sample includes all enrollees in the program, not just people who moved in and received the subsidy, which is necessary for the research design and relevant for understanding the effects for all who were enrolled.

Pretrial Electronic Monitoring in San Francisco

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Pretrial electronic monitoring (pretrial EM) is a digital surveillance program that tracks the location and movements of people released to the community while they await the resolution of their criminal case. A locked plastic bracelet is attached to the person’s ankle, which includes a GPS tracking device that notifies the Sheriff’s Office if the person is not complying with the terms of their release. This report covers the characteristics and outcomes of people released by the courts to pretrial EM in San Francisco between 2018 and 2021. During this period, two significant events impacted pretrial detention. First, the In Re Humphrey decision required judges in San Francisco to consider ability to pay when setting bail and to select the least restrictive non-monetary release condition. Second, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers issued public health directives limiting the jail population in San Francisco. This report is not an evaluation or causal analysis...

Racial and Gender Disparities in Police Stops: What Does the 2021 Racial Identity and Profiling Act Data Tell Us?

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This policy brief highlights patterns in racial/ethnic and gender disparities in police stop rates, actions taken during stops, and stop outcomes in California, as reported in the Racial Identity and Profiling Act (RIPA) data for calendar year 2021, which includes data on nearly 3.2 million stops. Many of the patterns reported here have been documented and explored in detail in prior annual reports published by the RIPA Board as well as in an independent analysis of the data from a prior year.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Felony Offenses and Sentencing Triads in California

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

California’s felony sentencing structure has become increasingly complex over the last forty years. Despite this complexity, this analysis also shows that changing just one section of the Penal Code — a default sentence that has not been adjusted since 1976 — would affect the sentence length of 71% of felony offenses in current law.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Increasing Stimulus Payment Take-up in California: Results from a Phone and Email Campaign

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In Fall 2021, The People Lab (TPL) and the California Policy Lab (CPL) partnered with the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and Code for America (CfA) to conduct and evaluate a state-wide outreach effort aimed at delivering stimulus payments to low-income Californians. The outreach campaign reached nearly 430,000 low-income households in California. These households were enrolled in either the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or CalFresh) or the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, or CalWORKs), and were identified as having at least one likely “non-filer” — someone who had not filed or been claimed on a state tax return in 2018 and/or 2019 and who was therefore likely to miss out on tax-based benefits payments. In a randomized evaluation, we tested the impact of informational outreach delivered via recorded voice message or email on the initiation and submission of returns among likely non-filers through the simplified filing tool created...

Solid Ground Year Two: A Process Evaluation of Solid Ground, a Family Homelessness Prevention Program Piloted by New Economics for Women in Van Nuys, California 91405

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Solid Ground is a two-year homelessness prevention pilot administered by New Economics for Women (NEW) that aims to serve families in the 91405 zip code (Van Nuys, California) whose less severe housing issues make them ineligible for traditional prevention services. A family may be eligible for Brief Solid Ground or Full Solid Ground, depending on the family’s score on the Prevention Targeting Tool. Brief Solid Ground consists of one day of services that may include: brief case management services; mediation and/or landlord dispute resolution services; referrals to mainstream benefits and/or other community resources; referral and linkage to legal services; and limited financial assistance (transportation and grocery cards). Full Solid Ground includes six months of all of the services available to Brief Solid Ground participants, in addition to direct financial assistance such as rental assistance (though not all Full Solid Ground participants receive financial assistance)....

Solid Ground Executive Summary: A Summary of Multi-Year Process Evaluations of Solid Ground, a Family Homelessness Prevention Program

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The Solid Ground homelessness prevention pilot was started in 2018, with a goal of serving families in Van Nuys, California (zip code 91405) who may be at risk of homelessness but who do not qualify for the homelessness prevention services provided by the Los Angeles County homelessness services sector.1 The pilot is administered by New Economics for Women (NEW), a nonprofit that administers a FamilySource Center. FamilySource Centers are located in high-need areas and are designed to assist low to moderate-income families with a continuum of services, including financial counseling and referrals to community resources. While Solid Ground was originally conceived as a two-year pilot, it was extended and NEW continues to operate it. The Solid Ground program was previously administered by the Housing Department and now falls under the purview of the Community Investment for Families Department (CIFD). Since 2021, CIFD has created seven additional Solid Ground homelessness prevention...

Startling Increase in California Auto Loans

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

During the past ten years, there has been a dramatic rise in the size and length of new auto loans, especially since the start of the pandemic. The average new auto loan (for a new or used car) in California is now over $34,000, and is a full $7,300 more than it was just 3 years ago. Loan lengths and monthly payments have also risen considerably over that period. The share of car loans that are 30+ days delinquent is also starting to tick upwards, from 1.5% in mid-2021 to 2.7% by the end of 2022.1 This publication uses nominal dollars, but the California Credit Dashboard includes an option to adjust for inflation.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Introducing the California Credit Dashboard

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

California is the fifth largest economy in the world, and one of every eight US loans is originated by a consumer in California. What happens in California affects the world. The California Credit Dashboard provides detailed information about household finances and debt, information that has not historically been available to the public at the state-level. The Dashboard, which we aim to update quarterly, will help measure the financial health of California households. What type of debt do Californians have? What is the current pace of originations? How many people are struggling to make payments? Are credit scores up or down? We also break out data by loan types, regions, and age groups, and hope to add more breakouts and functionality over time (tell us what you want to see!). Our data come from the University of California Consumer Credit Panel, a dataset of credit-bureau data provided by Experian, one of the three nationwide credit reporting agencies. A technical appendix...

Sentence Enhancements in California

Mon, 4 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Sentence enhancements are used to add time to an individual’s base sentence. California uses over 100 unique enhancements. This report analyzes data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to understand the role of sentence enhancements in California’s corrections system. It fnds that enhancements lengthen average sentences and are more likely to impact the sentences of men and Black and American Indian people who are sentenced to prison, application varies by county, and that enhancements contribute to the overall size of the state prison population.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Association of Shelter-in-Place Hotels With Health Services Use Among People Experiencing Homelessness During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Key Points

Question: Was placement in a shelterin-place (SIP) hotel during the COVID-19 pandemic associated with health system utilization among people experiencing homelessness with a history of high use of acute health services?

Findings: In this cohort study of 686 high users of acute county services experiencing homelessness, those who received a SIP hotel placement had significantly fewer emergency department visits, hospital admissions, inpatient days, and psychiatric emergency department visits compared with matched controls without a placement.

Meaning: These findings suggest that provision of noncongregate shelter with supportive services in SIP hotels during the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with reduced use of acute health services among people with prior high use.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Independent Contracting, Self-Employment, and Gig Work: Evidence from California Tax Data

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The authors use de-identified data from California personal income tax returns to measure the frequency and nature of independent contracting and self-employment in California. They identify this work by the presence of a Schedule C on the tax return and/or the receipt of a Form 1099 information return. The authors estimate that 14.4% of California workers aged 18 to 64 in tax year 2016 had some independent contracting or self-employment income and approximately half of this subgroup also had earnings from traditional W-2 jobs during the year. Only a small share (1.4%) of workers had earnings from online labor platforms (often called gig work). Workers with low earnings were significantly more likely to earn independent contracting or self-employment income and to rely primarily or exclusively on that income. The article explores the characteristics of workers engaging in independent contracting and self-employment and their distribution across family type, geography,...

The Economic Impact on Women of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The California Policy Lsb's research confirmed that California women, who faced systemic inequities before the pandemic, were also uniquely impacted during and after the pandemic, because layoffs were concentrated in sectors where women are the majority of the workforce and childcare challenges were unevenly borne by women. These issues were compounded for women of color, low-income women, and lower-educated women. While safety-net benefits played an important role, many of those, such as enhanced unemployment benefits and the expanded Child Tax Credit, have been withdrawn. The Commission is calling on policymakers to make an immediate intervention to address the findings from the report in order to prevent deeper poverty and decreased health outcomes for California women.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Can Restorative Justice Conferencing Reduce Recidivism? Evidence From the Make-it-Right Program

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This paper studies the effect of a restorative justice intervention targeted at youth ages 13 to 17 facing felony charges of medium severity (e.g., burglary, assault). Eligible youths were randomly assigned to participate in the Make-it-Right (MIR) restorative justice program or a control group where they faced standard criminal prosecution. We estimate the effects of MIR on the likelihood that a youth will be rearrested in the four years following randomization. Assignment to MIR reduces the probability of a rearrest within six months by 19 percentage points, a 44 percent reduction relative to the control group. Moreover, the reduction in recidivism persists even four years after randomization. Thus, our estimates show that restorative justice conferencing can reduce recidivism among youth charged with relatively serious offenses and can be an effective alternative to traditional criminal justice practices.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of...

A slowing of pandemic-era migration patterns?

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The latest quarter of data on interstate migration into and out of California shows signs that pandemic-era mobility patterns may be slowing or even reversing in some places.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Disparities in Access to Unemployment Insurance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons from US and California Claims Data

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits provided a lifeline to workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic. However, access to these benefits has been uneven across communities and states (Edwards, 2020). Identifying and documenting these disparities is an important step to addressing them and to rendering the UI system more equitable. Utilizing a conceptual framework of unemployment claims, we developed three metrics to measure access to UI benefits across the claim lifecycle. We then analyzed these measures to provide insight into differential access to UI benefits across U.S. states and across counties within California.

The first measure of access is the First Payment Rate and corresponds to the earliest part of the claim lifecycle. It measures the share of people who file their first claim and who subsequently receive a UI payment. After the First Payment Rate, the primary measure of access in the report is the Recipiency Rate. The recipiency rate measures...

Analysis of Emergency Department Encounters Among High Users of Health Care and Social Service Systems Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Key Points

Question: Did emergency department (ED) use decrease among the top 5% of high users of health care and social services in San Francisco County during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Findings: In this cohort study of 8967 individuals, the rate of ED visits decreased by approximately 25% during the pandemic compared with nonpandemic years.

Meaning: Factors associated with decreased ED encounters and health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic among previously high users are not clear and warrant further investigation.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants M21PR3278.

How Hospital Discharge Data Can Inform State Homelessness Policy

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

California emergency departments (EDs) treated about 143,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2019, according to hospital discharge records. Almost half of homeless patients visited the ED four or more times in the year.

Medi-Cal covered 70 percent of ED visits by homeless patients, underscoring the importance of the CalAIM program, which provides added Medi-Cal benefits, such as housing supports and case management.

Linking discharge data with homeless assistance program data can offer insights into how people engage with EDs and homeless services across the state, and throughout the year, as well as help evaluate programs and public investments.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Identifying the impacts of job training programs in California

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Every year, over a million Californians receive workforce support and training from state and federally funded programs. In an efort to learn more about the impact of these programs and to improve them, an inter-agency partnership led by the California Workforce Development Board (CWDB) created Cross-System Analytics and Assessment for Learning and Skills Attainment (CAAL-Skills). The CAALSkills partnership facilitates data-sharing across seven California state agencies that deliver thirteen workforce programs. Bringing this data together signifcantly improves the state’s ability to observe who is enrolled in these programs and makes it possible, for the frst time, to measure the impacts these programs have on participants’ employment and earnings.

This policy brief highlights fndings from the frst causal study to estimate the impacts of ten training programs that report to CAAL-Skills, performed by the California Policy Lab at the University of California. The causal...

Increasing Equity and Improving Measurement in the U.S. Unemployment System: 10 Key Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The COVID-19 pandemic had an immense impact on the labor market in California and the U.S., with unemployment reaching highs not seen since the Great Depression. The regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) system, as well as federal legislation that created supplemental UI programs and benefit extensions, played a fundamental role in the country’s economic and public health response. Individual-level data on who applied for and received UI benefits can provide crucial insights into understanding how the crisis evolved, how well the government’s response worked, and what the implications are for future crises. The pandemic also brought to the forefront more fundamental issues with our nation’s UI system, such as pervasive inequities in which workers actually receive benefits and large differences in benefit amounts and durations. While some of these issues have persisted for decades, a lack of access to individual-level UI data has prevented a deeper understanding of the extent...

Connecting Families to Benefits Using Linked Data: a Toolkit

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Policymakers rely heavily on the tax system to distribute direct payments to lowincome families. Anti-poverty tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, the advanced Child Tax Credits, and the federal stimulus payments combined to keep millions of Americans out of poverty during the pandemic. Such credits have strong potential to continue to reduce poverty.

These credits only work, of course, if eligible families receive them. To do so, they must file a tax return. But many low-income families who are at or below the federal poverty level are not legally required to file taxes. Policymakers need a better understanding of how many low-income families don’t file taxes (and therefore miss out on these valuable credits) in order to address this problem.

While state and federal tax agencies know who files taxes, they have very little information on the families who do not file, especially those below the poverty level with little or no earnings. State and local...

CAAL-Skills: Study of Workforce Training Programs in California

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Every year, over a million Californians receive workforce support and training from state and federally funded programs. In an effort to learn about the benefits of these programs, an inter-agency partnership led by the California Workforce Development Board (CWDB) created Cross-System Analytics and Assessment for Learning and Skills Attainment (CAAL-Skills). The CAAL-Skills partnership facilitates data-sharing across seven California state agencies that deliver thirteen workforce programs. Bringing this data together significantly improves the state’s ability to observe who is enrolled in these programs and makes it possible, for the first time, to measure the impacts these programs have on participants’ employment and earnings.

This report highlights findings from the first causal study to estimate the impacts of ten California workforce training programs that share data with CAAL-Skills. The causal impact measures the effect of receiving training on participants’ employment...

Racial Disparities in Criminal Record Eligibility in California

Thu, 1 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In this study, we assessed equity in criminal record relief eligibility in California, one of the first states to pass automatic record relief legislation. Our analysis included three components. First, using criminal history data from the California Department of Justice (CA DOJ), we assessed the share of people with criminal records who are eligible for automatic relief under current laws, and how this eligibility varied across racial and ethnic groups. Second, we evaluated two hypothetical reforms in how eligibility is determined that might alter equity across racial and ethnic groups: (a) relief for discretionary cases, and (b) a sunset rule that would automatically grant relief for convictions more than 7 years old. Finally, we estimated how each of these hypothetical reforms would alter population-level disparities in conviction records statewide.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives...

Three Strikes in California

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Criminal sentences resulting in admission to a California state prison are determined by both the nature of the criminal incident as well as the criminal history of the person convicted of the offense. Cases with convictions for multiple offenses may lead to multiple sentences that are either served concurrently or consecutively. Characteristics of the offense (such as the use of a f irearm) or aspects of the person’s criminal history (such as a prior conviction for a serious or violent offense) may add to the length of the base sentence through what are commonly referred to as offense or case enhancements, respectively. California’s Three-Strikes law presents a unique form of sentence enhancement that lengthens sentences based on an individual’s criminal history. Consider an individual with one prior serious or violent felony conviction (one “strike”) who is subsequently convicted of another felony. Under Three Strikes, the sentence for the subsequent felony will be double...

How the Expanded Child Tax Credit Helped California Families

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This report uses state tax and safety-net enrollment data from tax year (TY) 2019 to simulate the impact of the 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC), expanded under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), on children enrolled in safety-net programs in California. We find the number of children eligible for the CTC in the safetynet caseload rose 67% under the ARPA. Put differently: we estimate that one quarter of all children enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in California (about 610,000 children) became newly eligible for the CTC under the ARPA. As a result, children enrolled in safety-net programs in California became eligible for $3.6 billion in credit payments through the ARPA, over and above the credit payments they were eligible for under 2020 — and current — law. Overall, we find that 76% of eligible California children (about 1.2 million) who were enrolled in SNAP or TANF have likely received the 2021...

Reminder postcards and simpler emails encouraged more college students to apply for CalFresh

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

CalFresh benefits can help college students make ends meet while attending college, but not all eligible students apply. One contributing factor may be that students are not aware they are eligible. Therefore, outreach efforts informing them of their eligibility could help increase take-up rates. To test this, we designed and conducted two experiments that leveraged an expansion in CalFresh eligibility for students that went into effect in early 2021. In response to the pandemic, Congress permitted a temporary expansion to college student eligibility for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or CalFresh as it is known in California. The expansion went into effect in January 2021 and will last through the end of the federal public health emergency. The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) partnered with The People Lab (TPL) and the California Policy Lab (CPL) on two randomized experiments to evaluate whether...

Emailing eligible college students resulted in more than 7,000 students applying for CalFresh benefits

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Qualitative information in undergraduate admissions: A pilot study of letters of recommendation

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A subset of undergraduate applicants to the University of California, Berkeley were invited to submit letters ofrecommendation as part of their applications. I use scraped text of the submitted letters, natural languageprocessing tools, and a within-subject experimental design wherein applications were read in parallel with andwithout their letters to understand the role that this qualitative information plays in admissions. I show thatletters written on behalf of underrepresented applicants were modestly distinctive. I also construct an index ofletter strength, measuring the predicted impact of the letter on the student’s application score. I show thatunderrepresented applicants tend to get weaker letters, but that readers pay less attention to letter strength forunderrepresented students. Overall, the inclusion of letters modestly improved application outcomes for theaverage underrepresented student.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California...

Changes in the Relationship Between Income and Life Expectancy Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic, California, 2015-2021

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This study examines how the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic affected life expectancy in California and the relationship between census tract income and life expectancy relative to prepandemic years. In this retrospective analysis of 1, 988, 606 deaths in California during 2015 to 2021, life expectancy declined from 81.40 years in 2019 to 79.20 years in 2020 and 78.37 years in 2021. Life expectancy differences between the census tracts in the highest and lowest income percentiles increased from 11.52 years in 2019 to 14.67 years in 2020 and 15.51 years in 2021. This ecological study of deaths in the state of California demonstrated that life expectancy declines in 2020 increased in 2021 and that the life expectancy gap by income level increased during the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic relative to the prepandemic period.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774...

Signals of Distress: High Utilization of Criminal Legal and Urgent and Emergent Health Services in San Francisco

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

People with multiple, complex health and housing needs frequently receive fragmented care because the providing systems operate independently. Typically, individuals who come into frequent contact with the emergency medical system (e.g., emergency departments; emergency medical services) also interact with other health services and public systems such as psychiatric facilities, substance use treatment centers, shelters, and jails. Cross-sector care coordination is limited, in part, because data systems are not linked across physical health, behavioral health (mental health and substance use), housing, and criminal legal systems. To help San Francisco better serve this high need population, the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley and the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative worked with our partners in San Francisco’s public health and criminal legal systems to link together ten years of data from the physical health, behavioral health, housing, and criminal legal...

Racial equity in eligibility for a clean slate under automatic criminal record relief laws

Mon, 31 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

States have begun to pass legislation to provide automatic relief for eligible criminal records, potentially reducing the lifelong collateral consequences of criminal justice involvement. Yet numerous historical examples suggest that racially neutral policies can have profoundly disparate effects across racial groups. In the case of criminal record relief, racial equity in eligibility for a clean slate has not yet been examined. We find that in California, one in five people with convictions met criteria for full conviction relief under the state's automatic relief laws. Yet the share of Black Americans eligible for relief was lower than White Americans, reproducing racial disparities in criminal records. We identify two policy amendments that would reduce the share of Black men in California with convictions on their criminal records from 22% to 9%, thereby narrowing the difference compared to White men from 15 to seven percentage points. Put another way, an additional one...

Pandemic Patterns: California is Seeing Fewer Entrances and More Exits

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, fewer people have been moving into California from other states and more have been leaving. At the end of September 2021, entrances to California were 8% lower than at the end of March 2020.1 Exits, following a dip in the first half of 2020, stood 12% higher at the end of September 2021 than at the end of March 2020 — representing a return to a steady pre-pandemic rate of increase of approximately 4% per year since 2016. Net domestic migration, defined as the difference between entrances and exits, went from 40,000 net exits per quarter prior to the pandemic to 80,000 afterward. This brief uses data through the end of September 2021. These trends are present throughout the state. Since the end of March 2020, new entrances to the state have dropped in 40 of 58 California counties, and when Californians move, they are slightly more likely to leave the state than they were before the pandemic began (true for nearly every county). But the Bay...

Serious Mental Illness among People who are Unsheltered in Los Angeles

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In Los Angeles, 45,021 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness received street outreach services between July 1, 2019 and June 30, 2020. Supporting and housing unsheltered residents is an urgent priority in Los Angeles, and it is imperative to better understand the challenges that individuals are facing. Questions persist about the size and unique needs of the group of individuals who are unsheltered and diagnosed with a serious mental illness (SMI). This is because unsheltered individuals experiencing serious mental illness, and particularly those individuals with a diagnosis of a psychotic spectrum disorder (“PSD”), may experience symptoms that could cause or contribute to losing housing and that could lengthen the duration of homelessness. This group often needs intensive, specialized, and coordinated care in order to exit homelessness. To better understand the prevalence of psychotic spectrum disorders (“PSD”) among those who are unsheltered, the California Policy...

The Impacts of the Make-it-Right Program on Recidivism

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The Make-it-Right (MIR) restorative justice conferencing program serves youth ages 13 to 17 who would have otherwise faced relatively serious felony charges (e.g., burglary, assault, unlawful taking of a vehicle). Following extensive preparation, participating youth meet with the people they have harmed or a surrogate, accept responsibility for the impact of their actions, and come to an agreement for how the youth can repair to the greatest extent possible the harm they caused. If the youth follow through with the repair actions outlined in the agreement, charges against them are never filed. If they do not, they face traditional juvenile felony prosecution. In this study, eligible youth were randomly assigned to participate in MIR or to a control group in which they faced felony prosecution. We find that youth given the opportunity to participate in MIR had a 19-percentage-point lower likelihood of a rearrest within six months, a 44 percent reduction relative to the control...

California Community College and University of California student participation in CalFresh food benefits

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. CalFresh food benefits, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, can help students in California pay for food, but may not reach all eligible students. CalFresh enrollment rates among students have been difficult to estimate due to incomplete data on California students’ eligibility for and enrollment in the CalFresh program.1 To overcome these issues, the California Policy Lab (CPL) partnered with the California Community College system (CCC), the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), the California Department of Social Services (CDSS), and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) to build a linked database of student-level administrative data on college enrollment, financial aid, and CalFresh participation.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774...

Who benefits from the student loan payment pause and what will happen when it ends?

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government stopped requiring payment on most federal student loans. This “payment pause” was originally set to expire in September 2020, but after several extensions it is set to expire May 1, 2022. Using anonymized credit records, we describe who was affected by the payment pause, how it impacted their finances, and what might happen when the payment pause ends. The payment pause affected the vast majority of student loan borrowers, and their average overall debt obligations fell by $210 (equivalent to one-third of their installment loan payments). The payment pause improved credit standing among affected borrowers. Delinquency rates dropped from 7% to 0%, and credit scores increased by an average of nearly 30 points, concentrated especially among borrowers with lower starting credit scores. We predict that three in ten borrowers — or nearly 8 million people — are at high risk of missing payments when the payment pause ends....

Addressing the barriers college students face when accessing CalFresh food benefits

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Many California college students face food and housing insecurity.1 CalFresh food benefits, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, can help students pay for food, but most students eligible for this support are not receiving it. To address the gap between eligibility and participation, the California Policy Lab (CPL) is building a new data system — in partnership with higher education and safety-net agencies in California — to examine the extent to which college students use safety-net benefits to help meet their basic needs, to estimate how benefit receipt affects educational outcomes, and to evaluate strategies designed to increase participation. As part of this portfolio of work, and to better understand the factors that may limit student participation in CalFresh, CPL collaborated with Jesus Chavarin-Rivas, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, to conduct 29 interviews with a selection of students, basic needs specialists, and local and...

A Rising Tide: Dual Enrollment is Growing Among California High School Students