University of California Research Initiatives

The California Policy Lsb's research confirmed that California women, who faced systemic inequities before the pandemic, were also uniquely impacted during and after the pandemic, because layoffs were concentrated in sectors where women are the majority of the workforce and childcare challenges were unevenly borne by women. These issues were compounded for women of color, low-income women, and lower-educated women. While safety-net benefits played an important role, many of those, such as enhanced unemployment benefits and the expanded Child Tax Credit, have been withdrawn. The Commission is calling on policymakers to make an immediate intervention to address the findings from the report in order to prevent deeper poverty and decreased health outcomes for California women.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Key Points

Question: Did emergency department (ED) use decrease among the top 5% of high users of health care and social services in San Francisco County during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Findings: In this cohort study of 8967 individuals, the rate of ED visits decreased by approximately 25% during the pandemic compared with nonpandemic years.

Meaning: Factors associated with decreased ED encounters and health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic among previously high users are not clear and warrant further investigation.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants M21PR3278.

This report uses state tax and safety-net enrollment data from tax year (TY) 2019 to simulate the impact of the 2021 Child Tax Credit (CTC), expanded under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), on children enrolled in safety-net programs in California. We find the number of children eligible for the CTC in the safetynet caseload rose 67% under the ARPA. Put differently: we estimate that one quarter of all children enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) in California (about 610,000 children) became newly eligible for the CTC under the ARPA. As a result, children enrolled in safety-net programs in California became eligible for $3.6 billion in credit payments through the ARPA, over and above the credit payments they were eligible for under 2020 — and current — law. Overall, we find that 76% of eligible California children (about 1.2 million) who were enrolled in SNAP or TANF have likely received the 2021 credit, totaling $3.8 billion in credits. The ARPA CTC had wide reach into California’s most vulnerable communities, including those in California’s poorest regions and across all racial and ethnic groups. Among all families who receive safety-net benefits and who had annual wage earnings of more than $5,000 in 2019, we estimate that, in aggregate, they received 90-95% of the total ARPA CTC payments allocated for them. To ensure equitable distribution of the CTC, future efforts should focus on increasing access for children residing in households with little to no income, Spanish-speaking households, children living in rural communities, and children living in mixed-status immigration households. However, across demographic groups, the biggest hurdle to comprehensive CTC access remains low tax-filing rates among households at the lowest earnings levels. We estimate that the low tax filing rate among families with earnings less than $10,000 annually leaves $790 million in unclaimed ARPA CTC. That amount represents 85% of the estimated $928 million in ARPA Child Tax Credits left unclaimed by California families enrolled in SNAP or TANF.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.

People with multiple, complex health and housing needs frequently receive fragmented care because the providing systems operate independently. Typically, individuals who come into frequent contact with the emergency medical system (e.g., emergency departments; emergency medical services) also interact with other health services and public systems such as psychiatric facilities, substance use treatment centers, shelters, and jails. Cross-sector care coordination is limited, in part, because data systems are not linked across physical health, behavioral health (mental health and substance use), housing, and criminal legal systems. To help San Francisco better serve this high need population, the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley and the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative worked with our partners in San Francisco’s public health and criminal legal systems to link together ten years of data from the physical health, behavioral health, housing, and criminal legal sectors. Using these linked data, we identify individuals with high utilization of the criminal legal system and the medical and behavioral health systems in a single year. High criminal legal utilization is defined as at least three jail bookings in a year, while high healthcare utilization is seven or more urgent/emergent healthcare contacts in a year. To understand trends before and after a year of high utilization, we analyze two cohorts. The 2011 cohort includes 211 people with high utilization of both systems in fiscal year 2011, while the 2020 cohort includes 161 individuals with high utilization of both systems in fiscal year 2020. This allows us to observe patterns of system use before and after years of high utilization. We find: • Almost all the individuals in both cohorts experienced homelessness (98–99%) • High utilization is linked to premature death: more than one quarter of the 2011 cohort is deceased within 10 years • Between 80–90% of individuals in both cohorts have substance use disorders, and many also have co-occurring mental health and physical health disorders • More than 90% of the individuals in both cohorts have been booked into jail for a felony and a misdemeanor • Many of the individuals in the 2020 cohort were in San Francisco and had contact with at least one of these systems in the prior 10 years. For example, 30% of the 2020 cohort was booked into jail in 2011. These findings highlight the need for coordinated, evidence-based interventions to address these individuals’ complex needs, stabilize housing, and prevent poor health outcomes including untimely death. 

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.

California emergency departments (EDs) treated about 143,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2019, according to hospital discharge records. Almost half of homeless patients visited the ED four or more times in the year.

Medi-Cal covered 70 percent of ED visits by homeless patients, underscoring the importance of the CalAIM program, which provides added Medi-Cal benefits, such as housing supports and case management.

Linking discharge data with homeless assistance program data can offer insights into how people engage with EDs and homeless services across the state, and throughout the year, as well as help evaluate programs and public investments.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278

Criminal sentences resulting in admission to a California state prison are determined by both the nature of the criminal incident as well as the criminal history of the person convicted of the offense. Cases with convictions for multiple offenses may lead to multiple sentences that are either served concurrently or consecutively. Characteristics of the offense (such as the use of a f irearm) or aspects of the person’s criminal history (such as a prior conviction for a serious or violent offense) may add to the length of the base sentence through what are commonly referred to as offense or case enhancements, respectively. California’s Three-Strikes law presents a unique form of sentence enhancement that lengthens sentences based on an individual’s criminal history. Consider an individual with one prior serious or violent felony conviction (one “strike”) who is subsequently convicted of another felony. Under Three Strikes, the sentence for the subsequent felony will be double the length specified for the crime regardless of whether the new conviction is for a serious or violent offense. For an individual with two prior violent or serious felony convictions, a third conviction for a serious or violent felony would receive an indeterminate prison term of at least 25 years to life, with the exact date of release determined by the Parole Board. 

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.

CalFresh benefits can help college students make ends meet while attending college, but not all eligible students apply. One contributing factor may be that students are not aware they are eligible. Therefore, outreach efforts informing them of their eligibility could help increase take-up rates. To test this, we designed and conducted two experiments that leveraged an expansion in CalFresh eligibility for students that went into effect in early 2021. In response to the pandemic, Congress permitted a temporary expansion to college student eligibility for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or CalFresh as it is known in California. The expansion went into effect in January 2021 and will last through the end of the federal public health emergency. The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) partnered with The People Lab (TPL) and the California Policy Lab (CPL) on two randomized experiments to evaluate whether outreach about this policy change could increase the number of students who applied for and eventually enrolled in CalFresh. One experiment, conducted in February and March 2021, tested the impact of email outreach. The second, conducted in June 2021, tested the relative effectiveness of different messages and modes of communication on the same group of students who were newly eligible. This brief reports the results of the second experiment. In a randomized experiment with 285,325 Californian college students, we found that the method of communication had a large impact on application rates: 2.9% of students who were only sent an email submitted an application for CalFresh compared to 4.9% of students who were sent an email and a postcard — a 69% increase. Simplifying the content of the communication also yielded a small increase in application rates, but other variations in message content had no meaningful effect. During the six weeks following outreach, 10,000 contacted students applied for CalFresh.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.

CalFresh benefits can help college students make ends meet while attending college, but not all eligible students apply. One contributing factor may be that students are not aware they are eligible. Therefore, outreach efforts informing them of their eligibility could help increase take-up rates. To test this, we designed and conducted two experiments that leveraged an expansion in CalFresh eligibility for students that went into effect in early 2021. In response to the pandemic, Congress permitted a temporary expansion to college student eligibility for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), or CalFresh as it is known in California. The expansion went into effect in January 2021 and will last through the end of the federal public health emergency. The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) partnered with The People Lab (TPL) and the California Policy Lab (CPL) on two randomized experiments to evaluate whether outreach about this policy change could increase the number of students who applied for and eventually enrolled in CalFresh. One experiment, conducted in February and March 2021, tested the impact of email outreach. The second, conducted in June 2021, tested the relative effectiveness of different messages and modes of communication on the same group of students who were newly eligible. This brief reports the results of the first experiment.1 In a randomized experiment with 285,731 California college students who were eligible under the temporary expansion and were not already receiving CalFresh in January 2021, we found that an email from CSAC led roughly 2–3% of recipients to apply for benefits through GetCalFresh.org within a week of receiving the email. The increase in applications translated into an increase in CalFresh enrollment of 1.5 to 2.5 percentage points. Effects were even larger for students who received a second follow-up email.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.

States have begun to pass legislation to provide automatic relief for eligible criminal records, potentially reducing the lifelong collateral consequences of criminal justice involvement. Yet numerous historical examples suggest that racially neutral policies can have profoundly disparate effects across racial groups. In the case of criminal record relief, racial equity in eligibility for a clean slate has not yet been examined. We find that in California, one in five people with convictions met criteria for full conviction relief under the state's automatic relief laws. Yet the share of Black Americans eligible for relief was lower than White Americans, reproducing racial disparities in criminal records. We identify two policy amendments that would reduce the share of Black men in California with convictions on their criminal records from 22% to 9%, thereby narrowing the difference compared to White men from 15 to seven percentage points. Put another way, an additional one in seven Black men currently has a conviction record, compared to their White counterparts. This would decline to an additional one in 14 if both hypothetical policy amendments were incorporated. We close with discussion of criminal history data quality limitations, which pose a second key challenge to equitable implementation of automatic criminal record relief reforms nationwide.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.

A subset of undergraduate applicants to the University of California, Berkeley were invited to submit letters ofrecommendation as part of their applications. I use scraped text of the submitted letters, natural languageprocessing tools, and a within-subject experimental design wherein applications were read in parallel with andwithout their letters to understand the role that this qualitative information plays in admissions. I show thatletters written on behalf of underrepresented applicants were modestly distinctive. I also construct an index ofletter strength, measuring the predicted impact of the letter on the student’s application score. I show thatunderrepresented applicants tend to get weaker letters, but that readers pay less attention to letter strength forunderrepresented students. Overall, the inclusion of letters modestly improved application outcomes for theaverage underrepresented student.

This work has been supported, in part, by the University of California Multicampus Research Programs and Initiatives grants MRP-19-600774 and M21PR3278.