Since our founding, Golden State Opportunity (GSO) has been hard at work making sure that our state economy works for everyone, because all Californians should be able to easily access the resources they need to meet their basic needs. Here are just a few of the successes we’ve had over the years:
Expanding Eligibility for the CalEITC
Working with organizations in the CalEITC Coalition, Golden State Opportunity was instrumental in getting the state of California to create and expand access to the CalEITC. Across multiple rounds of legislation, we increased the income limit to $30,000, updated the age restrictions so that working people under 25 or over 65 years of age were eligible, and expanded access to immigrants with an ITIN. These improvements helped make sure that millions of working, low-income people across the state could get more of their hard-earned income back.
Helping Families with Children
In the first months of the Biden Administration, we fought to make sure the American Rescue Plan included landmark policies to help working families, including an expanded federal Child Tax Credit that provided $3,000 for each child aged 6 to 17 and $3,600 for each child under age 6. Given our extensive education and outreach experience, leaders in Washington looked to Golden State Opportunity to help with efforts to educate people about the Child Tax Credit.
At the state level in California, we took a lead in getting the state to create the Young Child Tax Credit, a major boost for low-income workers with children under 6 years of age.
Outreach to low-income Californians
Each year, we perform direct outreach in coordination with more than 40 community partners to reach millions of low-income Californians through our CalEITC4Me education and outreach program. In 2021, CalEITC4Me helped more than 6.5 million people claim $1.24 billion dollars, money back in the pockets of the people who need it most.
And in the midst of the pandemic, we helped secure direct cash for the hardest-hit Californians through the Golden State Stimulus I and II. Since we knew from our CalEITC experience that people would need to be educated about how the stimulus worked, we launched into action with a multi-channel media campaign across California.
