blog post Students Choose College with Future Jobs in Mind By Hans Johnson May 5, 2017 Students’ career goals play an increasingly important role in their choice of college.
Report Geography of Child Poverty in California By Caroline Danielson, Sarah Bohn Feb 22, 2017 One-quarter of young children across the state live in poverty. In inland regions, reducing child poverty requires efforts to improve job opportunities. In many coastal regions, increasing access to affordable housing will help.
Report Expanding Health Coverage in California: County Jails as Enrollment Sites By Shannon McConville, Mia Bird May 10, 2016 In 2014, the first year of Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation, the number of Californians with health insurance increased substantially. However, millions of state residents continue to lack comprehensive health coverage, and those who remain uninsured are likely more difficult to enroll through traditional strategies. In this report, we find that uninsured rates are highest for young men and for those with low levels of education, income, and employment. The prevalence of these same characteristics among correctional populations suggests that the justice system—and, in particular, county jails—may offer points of contact for many uninsured individuals who would otherwise be hard to reach. Outreach and enrollment efforts aimed at local jail populations are set within the policy context of California’s 2011 Public Safety Realignment, which created incentives and resources for local corrections agencies to improve reentry outcomes. With expansions in access to health insurance coverage under the ACA, nearly all counties are establishing programs to provide enrollment assistance to jail inmates as part of a more comprehensive reentry strategy. But resources and capacity are limited, so it is important to identify effective models to maximize the potential of county correctional systems as sites of insurance enrollment.
Report Will California Run Out of College Graduates? By Hans Johnson, Sarah Bohn, Marisol Cuellar Mejia Oct 12, 2015 California’s higher education system is a critical driver of the state’s economic progress. As the state’s economy continues to change, will its workforce be ready for the jobs of tomorrow? This report updates and extends projections of California’s workforce skills through 2030, focusing on the supply and demand for workers with a bachelor’s degree. We find that the state will fall about 1.1 million college graduates short of economic demand if current trends persist—a problem we call the workforce skills gap. Even the arrival of highly educated workers from elsewhere is unlikely to be large enough to fill this gap. Today’s college graduates have better economic outcomes than those who do not hold a bachelor’s degree. Over time, college graduates have seen lower rates of unemployment and higher wages than other workers—even through the Great Recession—suggesting that college degrees have become increasingly valuable in California’s labor market. The future workforce skills gap looms large. But California and its higher education institutions can take several practical steps to close it. The core of a new plan for higher education should include increasing access to the state’s four-year institutions, improving college completion rates, expanding transfer pathways from community colleges, and being smart about aid programs.
Report Child Poverty and the Social Safety Net in California By Caroline Danielson, Sarah Bohn Sep 29, 2014 Because economic hardship is associated with a host of adverse outcomes, particularly for children, policies that can give children a better start in life are especially important. This report focuses on measuring material hardship among children across the state. Using the California Poverty Measure—which accounts for both family earnings and safety net resources and adjusts for work expenses and housing costs—we find that one-quarter of California’s children are in poverty. An additional 26 percent of children live in households that are "near poor,” or somewhat above what is often referred to as the poverty line. In short, about half of California’s children are poor or near-poor. Poverty rates, earnings, and the role of safety net resources all vary by region. But most poor children live in "working poor” families, with one or more working adults. And, without resources from the social safety net—which includes the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, CalFresh (California’s food stamp program), CalWORKs (California’s welfare program), and housing subsidies—there would be far more children in poverty throughout California.
blog post Is California the Poorest State? By Caroline Danielson, Sarah Bohn Sep 29, 2014 One poverty measure ranked California as the poorest state in the U.S. But according to the latest official estimates, 16 states had higher poverty rates. How do we make sense of this?
Report California’s Need for Skilled Workers By Sarah Bohn Sep 17, 2014 If recent trends continue, California is likely to face a shortage of workers with some college education but less than a bachelor’s degree by 2025. State and federal policymakers have increased their focus on boosting educational opportunities for this segment of the workforce. This report examines labor market outcomes among workers with some college training to shed light on the types of jobs that hold the most promise for future workers and the state economy.
