key takeaway
Young adults across California face higher-than-average poverty and deep poverty rates as they transition into adulthood, underscoring the need to strengthen core basic needs programs and investments that help young Californians achieve economic stability and meet their basic needs.
Young adulthood is a crucial time to establish independence and start to build financial stability, both of which are pivotal to laying the foundation for a successful future. However, this can be difficult to do while experiencing food insecurity, housing instability, and poverty, as almost 744,000 young adults across California do.
Newly released data based on the California Poverty Measure (CPM) show that 23% — almost one-fourth — of young adults ages 18–24 are living in poverty, with 7.6% experiencing deep poverty. These rates outpace other age groups and are well above the average poverty and deep poverty rates for all Californians — 16% and 4.4%, respectively. This exposes a critical gap in access to economic stability and anti-poverty programs for young Californians.
How are poverty and deep poverty defined here?
The California Poverty Measure (CPM) compares a family’s economic resources to a poverty threshold that represents the minimum level of resources a family needs to achieve a modest standard of living within a California-specific context. Individuals experiencing deep poverty are those whose resources are less than 50% of the CPM poverty threshold.
Young Adults Encounter Many Barriers to Achieving Economic Stability
Economic instability is especially common among young adults as they make the transition into adulthood, a period when young people make key decisions about their next steps in education, work, and independence. Some enter the workforce for the first time, often taking on entry-level or low-wage jobs as they begin to build experience. Others pursue higher education or training, navigating rising costs, student housing shortages, and limited basic needs assistance while enrolled. Across these trajectories, higher-than-average unemployment rates, increased likelihood of working in low-wage occupations, and varied levels of family and community support contribute to the uncertain economic situation in which many young adults find themselves.
These challenges are especially pronounced for certain communities, including Black and Latinx young people who are more likely to face structural barriers to employment, and LGBTQ+ youth who are more likely to experience homelessness. Programs like CalFresh, Medi-Cal, and subsidized housing can play a crucial role in alleviating some of these struggles for young adults experiencing poverty and help ensure they have the tools to build a successful life.
However, CPM data show that while basic supports reduce poverty among young adults, the impact is not as pronounced as with other age groups. This may point to young adults being less consistently served by core basic needs programs, which often prioritize families with children, older adults, and people with disabilities.
In addition, while CalFresh, Medi-Cal, and select housing supports are among the few programs that serve adults without dependents, recent federal changes to these programs through H.R. 1 could directly impact their availability to young adults. Some of these harmful policies include eliminating exemptions to CalFresh time limits for former foster youth and increasing the frequency of eligibility checks for maintaining Medi-Cal. State enacted policies, like freezing Medi-Cal enrollment for undocumented Californians and scaling back funding for homelessness programs that have helped decrease youth homelessness rates, further diminish the ability of young Californians to meet their basic needs.
The barriers to basic needs programs, lack of state investment, and challenging economic circumstances increase the likelihood of economic instability and may result in even higher poverty rates for young Californians.
Policy Recommendations to Help Alleviate Poverty
Meaningfully addressing poverty among young adults is already a complex task, and the adverse policy changes mentioned above will only make it harder. Some policies that could help ensure poverty rates don’t increase further while bolstering the state’s anti-poverty programs in the face of H.R. 1 include:
- Strengthening access to core benefits: Invest in county capacity for streamlined, comprehensive intake to help eligible young adults maintain Medi-Cal and CalFresh despite increased federal barriers.
- Protecting health care access: Reject proposals to extend federal work requirements to state-funded Medi-Cal participants who are undocumented, which would make them more likely to lose life-saving coverage.
- Restoring inclusive coverage: Reverse the state enrollment freeze for undocumented adults and eliminate the added premium to ensure equitable access to health care.
- Addressing housing instability: Provide sustained Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) grant funding so counties can expand proven, flexible homelessness prevention and response strategies, in addition to replenishing depleting bond dollars to support investments in affordable housing.
In order to meaningfully address high rates of poverty for all Californians in the long run, the state will have to raise significant, ongoing revenue, beginning by eliminating costly corporate tax breaks that cost California billions of dollars in forgone revenue each year, which could be used to support Californians struggling to make ends meet. More broadly, California should strengthen its tax base so that people with high incomes and wealth contribute fairly to the public investments needed to improve the lives of all Californians.
By strengthening the core programs that young adults depend on, California leaders can help mitigate rising poverty and increase young adults’ access to basic needs. In turn, young adults can have a better chance to pursue their educational, professional, and personal aspirations.
