SECTION 1.
(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(1) The State of California should explore guaranteed income as a means of ensuring economic security for all Californians.
(2) California leads the country in social and economic innovation by serving as a model for renewable energy adoption, pioneering technology to improve people’s lives, and adopting paid family leave, worker sick leave, and other worker rights.
(3) The key to California’s prosperity is its people. The hard work and creativity of California’s diverse residents have driven the state’s success, and the state thrives when all residents are included in and contribute to society.
(4) However, not every Californian is sharing in this success and prosperity. According to the California Poverty Measure, 17.8 percent of all Californians lived in poverty in 2017. The number is much higher for communities of color, with 42.5 percent of the Black population and 50.1 percent of the Latinx population living in poverty. The San Jose area’s gross metro product (GMP) per capita is 64 percent greater than the rest of the state, and the San Francisco area’s GMP per capita is 45 percent greater than the rest of the state. Without the San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, the County of Orange, and San Diego metro areas, the state’s GMP per capita would be just above that of Mississippi, the hardest struggling state in the nation. While state minimum wage increases are making a difference, California wages still have a long way to go to keep up with the economy. From 1979 to 2014, wages for the 20th, 50th, and 90th percentile dropped a respective 42 percent, 38 percent, and 13 percent when adjusted for GMP per capita.
(5) While there is great potential to reverse this course by ensuring that every worker has a living wage and the right to collective bargaining, California should also pursue the additional stopgap of guaranteed income until we achieve this goal and to ensure that the inability to earn income from work, either in the short term or the long term, does not prevent a person from achieving economic stability.
(6) Unconditional cash assistance will work to reduce the drastic inequality that is undermining our shared prosperity only if it is issued in coordination with public safety net benefit programs. Yet, without changes to existing law and guidance, the various research pilots distributing guaranteed income being conducted throughout the state will be conducted in ways that are disrupting existing public safety net benefits programs, which will not result in outcomes that aid in an understanding of how these powerful antipoverty tools can work together.
(b) Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature to do both of the following:
(1) Develop a registration process for any organization or entity that issues financial assistance through a program in the state to ensure coordination of these financial assistance programs with public social services programs.
(2) Exclude financial assistance, as issued by a registered program in the state, as income or resources for purposes of determining eligibility to receive benefits or the amount of those benefits under prescribed public social services programs.