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California has billions more in tax revenue than projected. It should be used to keep people out of poverty.

In an unanticipated but not completely surprising series of events, California’s wealthiest residents have seen significant boosts in income during the pandemic, with many making good money because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, on the other end of California’s 40 million people, Californians don’t have enough to eat, don’t have a reliable place to live, and are at high risk of COVID exposure because they have no choice but to work in close proximity to others. Most jobs that were lost or had reduced hours from the state’s COVID shutdown mandates are low wage jobs. People in those positions are already just making it – pandemic-induced income loss is pushing them into deeper uncertainty.

The good news is that since wealthy Californians are making so much money, the state is experiencing a spike in revenue. Last month, the non-partisan Legislative Analyst Office estimated that California may have a surplus of $26 billion in the 2021-22 budget. This illustrates the virtue of a progressive tax system like California’s, since the point of taxes is to provide for the structural needs of a society to help stabilize it – but it also requires taxes to be used efficiently and wisely. Unfortunately, many are already calling for California to hoard this tax windfall for a “Rainy Day,” because apparently, a global pandemic plunging millions into poverty doesn’t fit that category.

If California wants to be a leader in the United States and in the world, it cannot ignore the obvious call here – make sure people can eat, have access to shelter, and access to health care — make sure people can actually live here.

Widespread poverty is everyone’s problem because the deeper into poverty a society goes, the harder it is to get out. Fortunately, California has wealth, so we can address these fundamental, deeply destabilizing problems – the question is, will we? This is where conversations about economic and racial justice and equity in California reach their limit. This is a stark, straightforward situation; state policy makers and administrators have to put money where the talk is, and make the tax revenue from the 5th largest economy in the world work for the people who hold it up.

The state must invest in the people the state’s pandemic polices most negatively effect. With as much directness and immediacy as possible, people need:

  1. Direct food and cash assistance.
    • In September Governor Newsom vetoed AB 826, which would have provided one-time food aid to those most in need during the pandemic. He cited cost for the veto. The money is here now. Food should be the very first item on the agenda, especially since in many cases, the people who don’t have enough to eat are the same people supplying the majority of California and U.S. agriculture. It shouldn’t need to be said, but the people producing our food should have enough to eat.
    • With unemployment still at record levels, many people need income. As extended unemployment benefits end due to a lack of federal empathy, California must step in and provide cash so people can afford basic necessities. California needs extended unemployment, increased grants to people on CalWORKs, and restoration to cuts made to elders and people with disabilities on SSI. Every dollar the state provides will go right into the economy, providing a boost to business.
  2. Direct rent relief and housing assistance.
    • People can’t work, so they can’t pay rent. Without stable housing, every part of life is harder. It’s harder to keep a job, educate kids, rely on steady meals, and have safe harbor from the pandemic.
    • We are seeing an increase in homelessness on top of the crisis we already have. In Sacramento for example, the Sacramento Bee reported that “During the first six months of this year, 3,790 people in Sacramento County escaped homelessness, but another 3,736 became homeless.” The state expanded shelter capacity, but that funding is drying, and so is the housing. We need to keep people who are already housed in their homes so they don’t slip into homelessness.
  3. Health4All and a fix for the Medi-Cal asset test.
    • At the start of 2020, Governor Newsom promised to expand Medi-Cal to undocumented elders. That hasn’t happened, and the delay is causing further instability for those hit hardest by COVID-19: immigrants and people over age 65.
    • Similarly, AB 683 would have fixed an outdated rule that limits the cash savings elders and people with disabilities can have and still be able to enroll in Medi-Cal. Forcing people to choose between health care and saving for an emergency is a particularly shortsighted policy during a pandemic that this money should be used to fix.

The Legislature is due to return next Monday, December 7th. When they do, the first order of business must be to pass an emergency relief package to prevent more suffering. We think the steps above are concrete, doable first steps.

 

AB 826 (Santiago) Pandemic Food Assistance Vetoed – Statement from Bill Co-Sponsors

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), California Association of Food Banks and Western Center on Law & Poverty were proud to sponsor Assembly Bill 826, introduced by Assembly Member Miguel Santiago, which would have established emergency food assistance in the form of two $600 payment cards for use at grocery stores.

During this pandemic, Assembly Bill 826 was the only bill passed by the legislature to provide food assistance for those affected by COVID-19. It was vetoed by the Governor last night.

We are disappointed in the veto and disagree on its message, which states that it would have had “General Fund impact annually.” This bill sought to provide a onetime allocation of emergency funds to prevent hunger during a pandemic.

Hunger is a persistent problem in California, but during the COVID-19 public health crisis, many more of the state’s residents are suffering with hunger for prolonged periods of time. These alarming rates of hunger have reached levels that surpass those seen during the Great Recession. Most impacted are immigrants who have lost wages from employment in the hospitality, restaurant, janitorial, hotel worker, agricultural, garment worker and food packing industries.

The loss of wages among this workforce is often a result of contracting COVID-19 in a high risk working environment with inadequate access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), caring for a family member who has contracted the virus, or losing hours or a job as a result of the stay-at-home orders. In Fact, in California, rural communities with large numbers of food-system workers, like farmworkers and meatpackers, for example, have an infection rate that is five times higher on average than comparable counties.[i] Furthermore, the Latinx community in California are getting sick and dying from COVID-19 in disproportionately high numbers:[ii]

At the height of state’s shutdown in April, approximately a quarter of Californians, 10 million people, were food insecure.[iii] Food insecurity is particularly bad among families with children. 40% of families with children 12 and under across the U.S. were food insecure in April, and in almost one in five households of mothers with children age 12 and under, children experienced food insecurity. [iv]

What’s more, according to Census Bureau data, from May 28 to June 2, 2020, Black and Hispanic or Latinx households were twice as likely as white households to report that they sometimes or often do not have enough to eat. Among households with children, 21 percent of Hispanic or Latinx respondents and 27% of Black respondents reported that they are currently experiencing hunger.[v]

The rapid increase in food insecurity among immigrant workers was also exacerbated by the unprecedented increase in food prices, [vi]  school closure, [vii] and by the closure of soup kitchens and congregate meal programs. [viii]

Federal COVID-19 relief helped Americans prevent hunger. This included increases in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, Pandemic Unemployment, and CARES Act stimulus payments, 16% of which were spent in the first week to purchase food.[ix] But immigrant families have been largely locked out of this help.

Thanks to fast action by the California Department of Social Services, millions of families with children, including immigrant families ineligible for other benefits, were helped with federal Pandemic-EBT benefits, and the impact of that program to reduce hunger was well documented and significant.[x] But those resources were spent months ago, and while we are hopeful an extension to Pandemic-EBT will be enacted in the federal Continuing Resolution, there is no guarantee that it will or that the benefits will come swiftly enough to stave off hunger that will have lifelong consequences for low-income Californians.

Although California’s two million undocumented immigrants are an integral part of our society, paying taxes and risking their lives to continue performing essential services that keep California running and put food on all of our tables, there are currently no protections in place to support them should they or someone in their family lose income as a result of contracting COVID-19 or lose their job as a result of the public health orders to prevent the spread of the disease. AB 826 would have helped to counter that reality and would have reinforced to the immigrant community that they will not be forced to suffer some of the most detrimental impacts of the pandemic without help.

CHIRLA, California Association of Food Banks and Western Center are disappointed in tonight’s veto of AB 826 (Santiago) which leaves the state of California with no plan to address hunger for our immigrant communities in the weeks ahead.  We will urgently request a meeting with the Governor and his team to ask about their plan for addressing the unprecedented levels of hunger in the weeks and months ahead. We are committed to bringing this issue next year because hunger and COVID-19 will continue to impact low-income and communities of color.

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For more information, please contact:

Joseph Villela jvillela[at]chirla.org

Andrew Cheyne andrew[at]cafoodbanks.org at California Association of Food Banks

Jessica Bartholow jbartholow[at]wclp.org at Western Center on Law & Poverty

 

End Notes

[i] https://thefern.org/2020/06/covid-19-shows-no-sign-of-slowing-among-food-system-workers/

[ii] https://www.sacbee.com/news/coronavirus/article243965407.html

[iii] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/pandemic-food-banks-hunger/613036/

[iv] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/06/the-covid-19-crisis-has-already-left-too-many-children-hungry-in-america/

[v] https://www.census.gov/householdpulsedata

[vi]  https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/05/20/food-prices-soar-coronavirus-covid-19/5226969002/

[vii] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/coronavirus-300-million-children-to-miss-school-meals-amid-shutdowns

[viii] https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-threatens-to-overwhelm-cities-social-safety-net-11585474200

[ix] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2020/04/15/how-are-americans-spending-those-1200-stimulus-checks-food-gas-and-bills/#2d5595f02e5a

[x] New America’s Report: “It has meant everything”: How P-EBT Helped Families in Michigan, https://www.newamerica.org/public-interest-technology/reports/it-has-meant-everything-how-p-ebt-helped-families-in-michigan/ ; New America/FRAC/Ed Trust Snapshot: Pandemic EBT: “It has Meant Everything”: How P-EBT Helped Families in Michigan, https://newamericadotorg.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Two-Page_Snapshot_of_Michigans_P-EBT_Program.pdf; The Hamilton Project’s Report: The Effect of Pandemic EBT on Measures of Food Hardship, https://www.hamiltonproject.org/assets/files/P-EBT_LO_7.30.pdf