PAI rankings released

On December 13, 2016, California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA) released their annual report on California counties' CalFresh participation rates: the Program Access Index (PAI) rankings and Lost Dollars Empty Plates (LDEP) report.



Santa Barbara County moved up one notch in the PAI and is now ranked 53rd of the 58 counties. (The formula used to calculate the PAI has not changed from last year.) The report estimates that 53,135 income-eligible individuals are not participating.

In years past, CFPA typically released these reports in February or March, accompanied by a fair amount of media outreach. There appears to be less media attention this time, but CFPA did still generate a press release for each county---in our case, arguing that full CalFresh participation could bring an additional $55 million in federal nutrition benefits and $98.5 million in overall economic impact to Santa Barbara County.

Counties have voiced concerns over the years with the methodology of these reports. CWDA can supply us with more extensive talking points from years past if it's helpful, but the basic argument remains that the PAI formula is flawed and inaccurate because it:

• Does not account for undocumented citizens, who are ineligible to CalFresh. (Our County has a lot of undocumented workers in its extensive ag industry.)
• Does not account for active military and their family members, who are ineligible to CalFresh. (Our County has an air force base.)
• Only uses the monthly beginning average number for County participation in CalFresh, instead of the annual unduplicated number.
• Assumes that persons receiving CalFresh stay on the program continuously through the year or their lifetime, which is contradictory to the Program’s safety net design of assisting persons as they need it.

That said, here's some good news:

• Our ranking improved from 56th to 54th in last year's report, and improved again to 53rd in this year's report.
• We expect it will keep improving. Our data suggest that Santa Barbara County's CalFresh caseload began growing at a faster rate than the state overall starting in September 2014, with the strongest growth starting in January 2015. Due to the 2-year lag in the data, this should be reflected in next year's report (the 2017 report will cover 2015 data). 
• Most counties lost ground; we gained. Compared to last year, approximately 64% of Counties had downward movement in the rankings and approximately 21 of the 58 (36%) including us had upward movement or improvement. We bucked the trend in a positive direction...and aside from Ventura, were the only midsized county to do so (the others were all small counties).