Blog Post Archive - Public Policy Institute of California

California has long relied heavily on voting by mail, and since 2015 the state has counted mail ballots that arrive within a post-election time frame—currently set to 7 days—as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day. This policy has saved thousands of ballots from being rejected as late. But the share of ballots rejected for lateness has been rising in r...

California’s San Joaquin Valley is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. The valley accounts for about 60% of the state’s farm economy and produces an astonishing share of the nation’s fruits, ...

An earlier version of this commentary was published by Carnegie Ca...

California’s housing crisis is usually measured in dollars: half-million-dollar starter homes and housing costs that eat up half a paycheck. But there’s another way to see the crisis—in years. Californians now wait longer to become homeowners than they used to, and longer than people almost anywhere else in the country.

California’s homeownership rate (56%) is s...

PPIC Water Policy Center associate director Caitlin Peterson testified before a joint informational hearing with the Senate and Assembly Agriculture Committees, “The State of Agricultural Production in California.” Here are her prepared remarks.

Introduction

Agriculture is California’s