Category: Population

Video: PPIC Statewide Survey Briefing

As discussions continue in Sacramento about drought relief, funding for higher education and transportation projects, and an extension of Proposition 30 tax increases, PPIC surveyed public opinion on these and many other topics. At a briefing last week in the capital, PPIC researcher Jui Shrestha provided the survey findings. Among the key points:

  • Two-thirds of Californians say the regional water supply is a big problem, and two-thirds say people in their part of the state are not doing enough to respond to the drought.
  • While most adults say that spending money on the maintenance of California roads, highways, and bridges is very important, there is little support for increasing the gasoline tax or vehicle registration fees to do so.
  • Half of Californians favor extending the Proposition 30 tax increases, and about a third favor making them permanent.

Californians and Immigration

While the courts, and perhaps Congress, decide the future of President Obama’s actions on immigration, the most recent PPIC Statewide Survey shows how Californians view the issue. Most Californians (69%) supported the president’s executive order protecting as many as 4 million undocumented immigrants from deportation; while 30 percent were opposed. Californians are much more likely to support executive action on immigration than adults nationwide (52% support, 44% oppose).

Across California’s political, regional, and demographic groups, support falls short of a majority only among Republicans (35%). By comparison, most Democrats (83%) and independents (63%) support the president’s actions.

Looking more closely at the January survey findings, we see results consistent with California’s reputation as a blue state. More than 60 percent of Californians across regions and gender, age, education, and income groups support the administrative action on immigration. Considering that Latinos are by far the largest group affected by the executive order, it’s not surprising that nearly all Latinos (89%) support presidential action on immigration; however, 55 percent of whites also voice support.

Support for the president’s action is consistent with favorable opinions on recent reform proposals that have been debated but not enacted by Congress. The Senate passed a plan in 2013 that would have provided a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants if they met certain requirements. Our September 2014 survey showed that a strong majority—82 percent—including more than 55 percent across parties supported this plan. In fact, more than 65 percent across regional, age, education, income, and racial/ethnic groups were in support.

Beneath Californians’ support of both the president’s executive action and the Senate’s comprehensive immigration plan is a generally favorable view of immigrants. In our January survey, a majority of Californians (63%)—as they have in past surveys dating back to 2000—viewed immigrants as a benefit to California because of their hard work and job skills; 32 percent viewed them as a burden because they use public services. Most Californians across political, regional, and demographic groups view immigrants as a benefit—Republicans (27%) and adults age 55 and older (49%) are the exceptions.

Our survey results help explain why California hasn’t waited for Congress to act on immigration reform. The state has passed a number of laws in the last two years that pave the way for undocumented immigrants to get student loans and financial aid, professional licenses, and, most recently, driver’s licenses. Home to the largest share of immigrants in the nation, California has the most at stake in immigration debate and has consistent views on it.

Video: January PPIC Statewide Survey Briefing

State residents are feeling more optimistic than they have in years—about California’s elected leaders, the direction of the state, and their own economic futures. Dean Bonner, associate survey director, presented these and other key findings at a briefing last week in Sacramento. In addition to asking about government and fiscal issues, the January survey gauged opinions on four important issues being debated at the state and federal level. Among the findings:

  • Crime, police, and race relations. A solid majority of Californians say the police are doing either an excellent job or good job controlling crime in their communities. But blacks are much less likely than others to hold this view.

  • Water and drought. A majority of Californians say the supply of water is a big problem in their region, and most say the state and local governments are not doing enough to respond to the current drought.

  • Health care reform. A record-high 51 percent of Californians have a generally favorable view of the 2010 health care reform law, while 41 percent have an unfavorable view.

  • Immigration reform. A solid majority of residents support President Obama’s executive action to shield as many as 4 million immigrants from deportation, while about a third are opposed.

Undocumented Immigrants and Health Care

On the heels of President Obama’s recent executive actions on immigration, state senator Ricardo Lara has reintroduced legislation (SB 4) to provide access to affordable health coverage and care to all Californians, regardless of immigration status. The details of SB 4 have not been spelled out, but Senator Lara’s previous bill called for the state to offer the coverage available under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to undocumented immigrants: Medi-Cal coverage to those below 138% of the federal poverty level (annual income of about $16,000 for a single person) and subsidies to purchase coverage to individuals earning up to 400% of the poverty level (about $46,700 annually).

As PPIC pointed out in a recent blog post, while the ACA excludes undocumented immigrants from the coverage expansions, President Obama’s executive order could pave the way for immigrants in California who are eligible for the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability program (and who meet income eligibility requirements) to get Medi-Cal coverage. Under current Medi-Cal eligibility rules, immigrants with deferred action status—meaning that their presence is known to the government and there are no plans to deport them—can receive full coverage under a benefit category known as PRUCOL (Persons Residing Under Color of Law). Some states, including California and New York, provide full Medicaid coverage for the PRUCOL group. This coverage is financed entirely by the states—the federal government funds only emergency medical treatment for undocumented immigrants.

The president’s action could also have implications for county programs that are required by state law to provide medical care to indigent residents. Currently, counties have considerable latitude in determining eligibility criteria for their indigent care programs, and many exclude undocumented immigrants. When state officials decided to expand Medi-Cal eligibility under the ACA, they reduced the funding provided to county indigent care programs because many of the people served by these programs would become eligible for Medi-Cal. The legislation (AB 85) that redirected state funds for county health programs included a provision to review this funding shift if there was federal action on immigration reform, but it’s not clear if that will happen in this case.

What is clear is that options for providing access to insurance coverage and health care for the more than 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in the state is a policy topic under consideration by policymakers at local and state levels.

California’s Future Challenges and Opportunities

PPIC hosted a day-long series of conversations this week about creating a better future for our state and highlighting the choices we need to make today to do so. After a keynote address by Nancy McFadden from the governor’s office, panelists from government, business, and philanthropy discussed California’s challenges and opportunities before a large audience in Sacramento and online. They tackled difficult topics, such as improving economic opportunity and increasing citizen engagement in government. And they discussed ways the state can build on its strengths—an improving economy, a diverse population, and a history of reform and innovation.

We will post videos of all of the sessions soon. In the meantime, we want to share the opening remarks prepared by PPIC researchers. They set the context each session:

We hope their insights will pique your interest and inspire you to watch the conference videos when they become available.

Timely Talk About California’s Future

Californians are feeling more optimistic about the state’s immediate economic future than they have in years, our December PPIC Statewide Survey shows. Today, 52 percent expect California to have good times financially for the next year. The last time more than half of residents expressed this view was in January 2001. But when Californians are asked to take the longer view, worries about their own economic futures emerge. Most residents—55 percent—think that when California’s children grow up they will be worse off financially than their parents.

The time is right to both build on Californians’ new optimism and address the nagging concerns about the future. After years of economic turmoil, the state has entered a period of reform and reinvention. How can we Californians ensure that the changes will bring about a better future for the state?

With the new legislature sworn in and state leaders developing policy agendas for the months ahead, PPIC is hosting a wide-ranging conversation tomorrow about the choices we need to make today to create a future that benefits all Californians. Registration for the conference, California—State of Change, is closed, but I invite you to watch the live webcast of this full-day event.

Event panels will cover a variety of topics, including the economic, political, and demographic trends driving change in the state; how leaders can best respond to them; and how government can be a partner in the kind of innovation that has made our state a leader in so many areas.

Please join us for a series of timely discussions about our future.

Immigration: What’s Next in California?

More than one million Californians could be affected by President Obama’s executive order on immigration. Undocumented immigrants who have resided continuously in the U.S. for the past five years and are parents of children who are either U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents will be eligible for work permits. They will also be relieved from the threat of deportation. In addition, the executive order increases the number of people eligible to register as “Dreamers” because they were brought to the U.S. as children.

Undocumented immigrants who qualify under the president’s order will likely be able to provide more stable homes and increase their connection to their communities. Californians have already demonstrated that this is what they want for undocumented immigrants. More than 80% of Californians favor providing undocumented immigrants with a pathway to citizenship if they meet background checks, pay back taxes and penalties, and learn English—according to each of the three PPIC Statewide Surveys that asked about this issue in 2014.

California legislators have been leaders in setting policy that helps integrate the undocumented immigrants already in our communities by passing legislation that allows undocumented immigrant youth to pay in-state tuition at our colleges and universities, qualify for state financial aid, and obtain driver’s licenses. Low-income Californians registered as “Dreamers” also qualify for state Medi-Cal.

What happens next depends in large part on the reaction of state and local governments. Knowing where qualified undocumented immigrants live is essential to realizing the potential gains both to the state and to the immigrants themselves. This is challenging. Surveys don’t generally ask about immigration status, so most of what we know about this population derives from complicated estimates of immigration status.

Here, we present counts of undocumented immigrants who have filed federal tax returns without social security numbers (instead using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, or ITINs) and with wage forms (W-2s) attached. We believe this is a reasonable way to broadly determine who will be affected by President Obama’s executive order. Undocumented immigrant tax payers are more likely to have been in the U.S. longer and are likely to be the most intent on making the U.S. their permanent home. By filing taxes, they have already taken steps to identify themselves as contributing members of their communities and the economy.

A few caveats—while we are certain that each of the immigrants we identify in this fashion are undocumented, this method probably does not count all undocumented immigrants who may be eligible for the order. Probably not all undocumented immigrant tax payers use ITIN numbers, and not all undocumented immigrants file tax returns. Further, not all undocumented immigrants using ITIN numbers will be eligible for the order.

We find that California has over 900,000 undocumented immigrants filing federal tax returns for the 2012 tax year, the most recent year data is available. These undocumented immigrants live in 55 of our 58 counties, with large numbers in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, the Sacramento region, the Central Valley, coastal California, and the Inland Empire. This information can be useful to local legal service providers and local governments to help plan for the registration of eligible undocumented immigrants, the most critical first step in implementing the president’s order.

Of course, county populations are not homogeneous—a closer look reveals sharp differences in the number of ITIN filings by zip code, even within counties. The map below shows high numbers of undocumented immigrants in rural regions (large-area zip codes), as well as in city and suburban centers (small-area zip codes). In Riverside County, for instance, undocumented workers are found in high numbers in the urban areas in the west, as well as in the agricultural region around the Coachella Valley.

President Obama has made it clear that those eligible for deportation relief under this new executive order are ineligible for health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. But, as in the past, California may wish to do more—for example, providing Medi-Cal coverage to qualifying adults and doing more to reach out to their already eligible children. In addition, upward mobility is most likely for immigrants obtaining work permits if they make investments in English language acquisition. NGOs, community college districts, and school districts that still provide adult education could use the information about where undocumented immigrants live to plan course offerings in the years to come.

Measuring Child Poverty

At a well-attended briefing in Sacramento this week, PPIC research fellow Sarah Bohn described the findings in a newly released report, Child Poverty and the Social Safety Net in California, that she co-authored with PPIC research fellow Caroline Danielson, who also attended.

The authors found that about a quarter of California children live in poverty and an additional 26% live in “near poverty,” a threshold defined by incomes between 100 and 150% of the official poverty threshold (up to $46,000 annually for a family of four on average). The poverty analysis was based on the California Poverty Measure, developed by researchers at PPIC and the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. Unlike the traditional federal measure, the new analysis considers regional cost-of-living differences, as well as assistance from government social programs, in measuring poverty.

Bohn also talked about the report and related issues today at an event titled Attacking Poverty by Connecting College Education & Workforce Development, hosted in Los Angeles by state senator Holly Mitchell.

Now Hiring: Skilled Health Workers

Changing medical technology, an aging population, and new health care policies have raised important questions about the workforce that will be needed to care for patients in the future. These issues were featured in a new report from PPIC—California’s Healthcare Workforce Needs: Training Allied Workers—and discussed at a luncheon in Sacramento on Friday that included a briefing by coauthor Shannon McConville, PPIC research associate.

The report notes that California will have to add 450,000 jobs to its health workforce over the next decade. With nearly 40 percent of these additional health jobs expected to require some college training below a bachelor’s degree, training programs at California’s community colleges and private two-year institutions will play an important role.

Participating in the panel discussion were Dr. Jocelyn Freeman Garrick, director of the Alameda County Health Pipeline Partnership; Catherine Martin, vice president of the California Hospital Association; and PPIC research fellow Sarah Bohn, a report coauthor. The panel, which was moderated by PPIC research director Patrick Murphy, explored the challenges faced by both public and private higher education institutions in keeping up with rapidly advancing skills requirements in the health care industry. Topics included differences between public and private schools and programs and partnerships that can train Californians for health workforce needs.

Bay Area Tops in Population Growth Rates

For many decades, inland areas of California have experienced faster population growth rates than coastal areas. Indeed, from 1950 to 2010 the Inland Empire (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties) experienced the most rapid rate of population growth in California. But now, for the first time since the 1860s, the Bay Area—long the slowest-growing urban region—is experiencing faster growth rates than any other region of the state.

Clearly, the Bay Area’s strong economy has led to this growth. With robust job gains and relatively high wages, demand to live in the Bay Area is very high. To some extent, local authorities and builders have responded to this demand with new housing construction, much of it multi-unit housing in densely populated areas. Population growth has been especially strong in Santa Clara and Alameda Counties, but San Francisco and San Mateo Counties are also outpacing the more suburban parts of the Bay Area, such as Sonoma and Solano Counties.

In contrast, inland areas are still recovering from the recession and housing bust that hit them hard at the end of the last decade. Declines in employment and very high rates of foreclosure were centered on these inland regions, including the Inland Empire, the San Joaquin Valley, and Sacramento.

Some might say this is not an important shift in regional growth patterns. After all, at 1.0 percent annual growth, Bay Area populations are not exactly exploding. But growth rates in the Bay Area are twice as high this decade as they were in the previous one, and no one expected the Bay Area to be the fastest-growing region of the state—according to long-term projections, inland areas will have faster growth rates than coastal areas. If recent patterns persist, this conventional wisdom will be turned on its head, and the implications for California’s future—from transportation infrastructure to water demand—could be enormous. As the economic recovery spreads throughout the state, it is reasonable to expect that inland growth will pick up, but to what extent and for how long is highly uncertain.

Chart Source: Author’s calculations based on California Department of Finance data.