Nick Roberts

In 2019 Governor Gavin Newsom more than doubled how much money the state spends on its tax credit for low income workers. But since its establishment in 2015, the credit has been unavailable for undocumented workers who pay taxes, until now. Depending on a household’s size and income, the California Earned Income Tax credit can […]

Millions of Californians continue to risk COVID-19 infection by showing up in person at work during the pandemic. But the state and federal governments have never required companies to share information about outbreaks with their employees — or to health authorities. More than nine months after Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the first shelter-in-place order, a […]

For decades, many California teens convicted of serious crimes — such as robbery, assault, and murder — were sent to state juvenile prisons. This year Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the closure of these state facilities. Under a new law, California’s three remaining youth prisons will no longer accept newly convicted youth after July 2021. Instead, counties will […]

More than 4 million Africans and their descendants were enslaved throughout the United States. While California joined the Union in 1850 as a state free of slavery, the Legislature passed the California Fugitive Slave Act in 1852, which mandated that government officials and ordinary white citizens help slaveholders recapture people who escaped.  Now, 170 years […]

As California has faced its most devastating wildfire season on record, nearly a third of the people on the frontlines have been state prisoners. Despite their firsthand experience, many incarcerated people couldn’t become firefighters after being released. A new California law aims to change that and make it easier to hire formerly incarcerated firefighters. Until […]

At the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, California students led the nation in creating college ethnic studies programs that explored the histories and cultures of people overlooked by the dominant European-centric curriculum. It was a time of national racial introspection and wide-scale protest. Echoes of then are loud and clear in […]

In response to nationwide protests following the Minneapolis killing of George Floyd, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two new policing laws aimed at improving police practices in California. Starting Jan. 1, California will have its first statewide policy banning police from using a couple of neck restraints: carotid restraints, which temporarily cut off blood flow to the […]

If you break your leg or need heart surgery, your insurance covers it. But that hasn’t always been true for mental illness and substance use disorders. A new 2021 law in California could improve that, broadening the list of mental health conditions insurers must cover. In the past, state law only required treatment for nine […]

A small part of almost every paycheck in California goes into the state’s paid family leave program, which allows workers to receive partial pay when they take time off to care for a new child or sick family member. But many people don’t take leave because the law doesn’t ensure they can go back to […]