At Risk: Governor’s Proposal Fails to Fund Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention

All Californians should be able to live in safe environments, free from violence and fear. However, millions of Californians experience domestic and sexual violence every year and women, transgender, non-binary, and women of color are most likely to experience these types of violence.

Domestic and sexual violence prevention programs are proven ways to stop violence from occurring in the first place. Prevention programs take a proactive approach and seek to shift culture on racial and gender inequities. Examples of prevention work include educating people on healthy relationships, increasing economic security for families, and reducing systems and beliefs that can lead to violence. These programs have been shown to:

• Improve the safety of school and community spaces,
• Lead to significant community and structural changes,
• Lead to sexual violence prevention being added to school district budgets,
• Make physical spaces safer in order to reduce vulnerability to sexual violence,
• Increase student conversations about sexual violence as a problem,
• Reduce dating abuse, and
• Result in substantial cost savings due to reductions in sexual violence-related costs.

How does California support domestic and sexual violence prevention?

Since 2018, California has provided small, one-time grants for prevention programs. The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) administers multiple grants with this one-time funding to support prevention efforts. There are also some federal funds available for prevention, but the large majority of federal funding for addressing domestic and sexual violence is for intervention only, and in fact, is prohibited from being used for prevention efforts. Despite domestic and sexual violence prevention’s proven effectiveness, state funding is relatively new and has been sporadic.

What organizations have received state prevention funding?

Many organizations across the state have received state funding in the form of Cal OES prevention grants. These grants are focused on supporting community-based organizations in the implementation of domestic and sexual violence prevention and education initiatives, especially those that focus on serving communities that are disproportionately impacted. Examples of organizations that have been able to increase their prevention efforts because of the state funding are described below.

How has state prevention funding impacted what services organizations can provide?

Dedicated prevention funding has a meaningful impact on communities. Perspectives from these organizations demonstrate how funding has supported the services that can be provided.

What would happen without ongoing domestic violence prevention funding?

Each organization recognized that their important work, which supports survivors and helps prevent domestic violence, is at the peril of sporadic state funding. Organizations describe how without these grants, they would not have any prevention funding to continue sustaining these programs.

• Both Project Sister and Rainbow Services explained how they are not able to do more ongoing prevention education due to a lack of ongoing funding, and that the sustainability of current programs relies on the state’s grants.
• KFAM shared that the only prevention funding they have is from the Cal OES grants. Although there is much more funding provided for intervention efforts, prevention grants allowed them to be more creative with programs to prevent violence in the first place, rather than only supporting survivors afterward.

Domestic and sexual violence prevention efforts take time. These programs work on shifting culture, which takes long-term planning and commitment. However, as the organizations in the examples all noted, organizations doing this critical work cannot commit to long term programming without permanent, ongoing funding. The governor’s proposed 2024-25 budget does not include any additional funding for domestic violence prevention, which puts these programs providing critical domestic violence prevention services at risk for termination.

No Californian should live in fear over their safety. In order to adequately protect Californians from domestic and sexual violence, the state should provide ongoing, sustained funding for prevention programs that can help stop the violence before it starts.

Unemployment benefits provide a critical safety net for many workers who lose their jobs, helping them to support their families while they seek to reenter the workforce. However, state unemployment benefits have not been raised in two decades and currently don’t provide enough money for Californians – particularly those with low incomes – to cover the cost of living. This points to the urgent need for California to increase state unemployment benefits so that workers can make ends meet when they lose work.

California’s unemployment benefits only replace up to half of a worker’s lost earnings. But many workers struggle to pay for food and rent even while working full-time. Covering the costs of living on half of their earnings is impossible. For the majority of California renters with low incomes who spend at least half of their income on rent, their entire unemployment benefit would go to rent if they don’t have other income sources. Or it might not even cover the full cost of rent, leaving them in debt, at risk of eviction, and with nothing left over to pay for other basic needs. For example, a worker who loses a full-time minimum wage job (at $16.90-per-hour in Los Angeles County) receives just $1,465 in monthly unemployment benefits, which falls $69 short of covering rent for a studio in Los Angeles.

Workers of color, including American Indian, Black, Latinx, and Pacific Islander Californians – and particularly women – are especially at risk of being unable to support their families while out of work because many have been segregated into low-paying jobs where unemployment benefits are too low to cover basic living costs. Insufficient benefits pose a particularly significant threat to the economic security of Black Californians, who consistently face twice the unemployment rate of white workers due to hiring discrimination and other barriers to work created through centuries of structural racism.

Losing a job would be less devastating if Californians could count on getting unemployment benefits that allow them to cover the costs of rent, food, and other basic needs while they search for work. State lawmakers should increase state unemployment benefits, especially for low-paid workers, and make sure that businesses uphold their responsibility to adequately fund this critical safety net for their workforce.

Unemployment benefits provide a critical safety net for many workers who lose their jobs, helping them to support their families while they search for new employment. Millions of Californians turned to unemployment benefits after losing work due to the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, policymakers previously failed to require businesses to pay the true costs of unemployment benefits for their workers, leading California to borrow billions of dollars from the federal government to pay for benefits – a repeat of what happened during the Great Recession.

California is one of just four states that allow employers to pay unemployment insurance taxes on the smallest wage base permitted by federal law, despite the lessons of the last recession and the need for businesses to contribute more to support the workforce.

State unemployment benefits are financed through payroll taxes paid by employers, which generate revenues that are deposited into the state’s unemployment insurance trust fund. But California businesses don’t pay these taxes on their entire payroll — they pay based only on the first $7,000 of each employee’s annual pay. This low base limits the amount of revenue the state can generate for unemployment benefits. For example, a 4% payroll tax would raise just $280 per worker in California, compared to $2,500 per worker in Washington state, where the taxable wage base is $62,500. Even with the same payroll tax rate, Washington would generate almost nine times more revenue than California for each employee making at least $62,500.

California’s taxable wage base has been frozen at $7,000 since 1983, failing to increase with rising wages. Consequently, the state’s base amounts to just 8% of the average annual earnings for a year-round worker – the smallest share in the US. In contrast, the taxable wage bases in 13 states are at least half of average annual earnings. Most of these states paid for unemployment benefits during the pandemic without federal loans.

California’s leaders must ensure that businesses uphold their responsibility to pay the true cost of unemployment benefits for their workers by increasing the taxable wage base for employer payroll taxes. This would not only prevent future debt, but also make it possible for California to increase unemployment benefits so that workers can meet rising costs of living as they seek to reenter the workforce and provide for their families.

All young children go through critical developmental stages impacting their lifelong health and well-being. However, young children in poverty face greater barriers to receiving the nutrition, learning materials, safe housing, and other resources integral for successful development. Moreover, Black and Latinx families in California have been more likely to struggle to meet basic needs. This highlights racial inequities in young children’s access to necessities.¹Limitations with sample size prevented the analysis in this publication from disaggregating by racial/ethnic identity. Lawmakers should invest in better publicly accessible data so that analyses (such as this one) can reliably disaggregate data by racial/ethnic identity to better understand inequities. Understanding trends in poverty for young children in California is therefore important for assessing the strength of federal and state anti-poverty policies and shaping policies that will help California’s youngest children to thrive.

How has poverty among young children changed over recent years?

Using the supplemental poverty measure, the following chart shows poverty levels from 2019 to 2022 for Californians across key age groups:

• Ages 0-12: Includes children who are eligible for early learning and care programs through the California Department of Social Services.
• Ages 0-5: Includes children who are eligible for early learning and care programs through the California Department of Education, Head Start, and Early Head Start. 
• Ages 0-3: The ages before a child is eligible to enroll in transitional kindergarten. 
• All Californians: Reflects Californians of any age, for the purposes of comparing poverty among young children.

Poverty trends for all Californians show a decrease in poverty from 2019 to 2021 and an increase from 2021 to 2022 as pandemic-era policies ended. Focusing specifically on young children, the chart shows that poverty among young children increased at a higher rate, as compared with all Californians. Specifically, between 2021 and 2022, poverty rose by 49% for all Californians, but it rose by 143% for children 0-3, 166% for children 0-5, and 121% for children 0-12. This uptick in poverty marks a reversal of the historic drop in child poverty from 2019-2021, reflecting how federal policy decisions to end key pandemic-era supports, such as the enhanced child tax credit, have negatively impacted California’s youngest children.

What can policymakers do to lift young children out of poverty?

The dramatic and troubling trends in poverty for young children hold key implications for California and federal policymakers. While recent California policy reforms targeting young children with low incomes, such as family fee reform, will support their well-being and health, more is needed.

Young children in California deserve to live in a state that affords them the opportunity to grow and thrive without experiencing poverty. Federal and state policymakers have several tools to draw on to ensure that poverty for young children, particularly young children of color, decreases.

Not everyone bears these challenges equally. Californians with the lowest incomes are hit the hardest when basic costs go up. More than 6 in 10 households in California earning less than $35,000 had difficulty paying for basic expenses such as food, housing, and medical costs from March to mid-July of this year.

Black, Latinx, and other Californians of color were more likely to struggle paying for basic expenses. Past racist policies and ongoing discrimination have made Californians of color more likely to have low incomes. For example, more than half (54%) of Black Californians reported facing difficulty paying for essential needs like food and housing. Additionally, LGBTQ+ individuals in the state disproportionately struggle to afford basic expenses.

Many California households with children are also struggling to pay for basic expenses. This is even more pronounced in households with low incomes. Overall, almost half of all California households with children (46%) struggled to pay for basic expenses between March and mid-July, compared to 35% of households without children. Among households with incomes under $35,000, over half (59%) of those without kids struggled paying for basic necessities. And while that share is very high, it’s even higher for households with low incomes and children — 71%, or 12 percentage points higher.

Millions of Californians are struggling to make ends meet every day. This is especially true for those with low incomes, Black, Latinx, and other Californians of color, and households with children. Pandemic-era supports that helped families and individuals pay for basic needs in recent years have expired. However, inflation and the high cost of living relative to workers’ earnings continue to strain families’ budgets. This points to the urgent need for policymakers to further invest in resources to ensure that all Californians can thrive. This includes affordable housing, affordable health care, and a strong safety net. In a state as wealthy as California, policymakers have the tools to build communities where all can share in our state’s prosperity.

Nearly six in 10 Californians say that price increases have caused hardship. Additionally, nearly half — including 63% of low-income Californians — say that their housing costs are placing a financial strain on them and their families. On top of this, the number of Californians living in poverty has likely risen because policymakers let pandemic supports expire. This includes emergency food assistance and expansions of the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Tax Credit.

A key and proven way policymakers can improve Californians’ economic security is by strengthening the state’s refundable income tax credits. These tax credits provide tax refunds to people with low incomes. California’s largest of such credits — the California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) — helps millions of Californians with low incomes meet basic needs each year.

Last year, the CalEITC put over $700 million back in the pockets of workers with low incomes and their families. So far this year, it’s provided well over $800 million. These dollars help families and individuals. Additionally, it supports local businesses, jobs, and economies by boosting the spending power of tax credit recipients. Research on the expanded federal Child Tax Credit as well as the federal EITC shows that the vast majority of families with low incomes spend their credits on basic household needs, with food being the most common expense.

Increasing the amount of cash provided through the CalEITC is a simple, effective way for state policymakers to help more Californians in working families make ends meet while also supporting local businesses and jobs. This investment is especially imperative now that federal pandemic supports have expired. This expiration makes it more difficult for many Californians to make ends meet. Tens of thousands of households in every legislative district across the state currently benefit from the CalEITC. Further investments in the credit could inject significant resources into their communities.

Assembly District Order

Notes: Number of households is rounded to the nearest hundred. It reflects those receiving the CalEITC in tax year 2021 as of 12/31/22. Just over 49,000 households that received the CalEITC (1.4%) filed taxes from zip codes outside of California. These households are not included in this analysis. Another 48,000 households that received the CalEITC & filed taxes from within California (1.3%) are not included in this analysis. They could not be matched to an Assembly or Senate district or because FTB did not report the zip code from which they filed in order to meet confidentiality standards. 

Source: Budget Center analysis of Franchise Tax Board data

Senate District Order

Notes: Number of households is rounded to the nearest hundred. This reflects those receiving the CalEITC in tax year 2021 as of 12/31/22. Just over 49,000 households that received the CalEITC (1.4%) filed taxes from zip codes outside of California. These households are not included in this analysis. Another 48,000 households that received the CalEITC and filed taxes from within California (1.3%) are not included in this analysis. They could not be matched to an Assembly or Senate district or because FTB did not report the zip code from which they filed in order to meet confidentiality standards.

Source: Budget Center analysis of Franchise Tax Board data