On Wednesday, the California Endowment hosted an informational webinar to discuss H.R. 1, also known as the “Big Beautiful Bill,” signed under President Donald Trump, and Governor Gavin Newsom’s May Revision, an updated interpretation of California’s state budget.
The May Revision was released on May 14 as an adjustment to the initial January budget proposal. Adriana Ramos-Yamamoto, senior policy fellow with the California Budget & Policy Center, began the webinar by discussing the May Revision and how it affects Californians.
“The May Revise includes common-sense revenue solutions, but makes affordability challenges worse. And it also fails to fully protect Californians from harmful federal cuts…He also makes it harder for Californians with low incomes to access basic supports, and he fails to propose more substantial ongoing revenue that is needed to protect vital services and to respond to the growing needs of Californians,” said Ramos-Yamamoto.
Ramos-Yamamoto continued by highlighting some of the positive aspects of the revenue forecast, including revenues that are already allocated to specific areas such as K-14 education through Proposition 98 and the state’s rainy day funds. General Fund revenues are projected to be $17 billion higher across the three-year budget window.
“More revenues are always a good thing, but we need to keep in mind that most of these revenues are actually already spoken for because of requirements that are in California’s Constitution,” noted Ramos-Yamamoto.
Since January, spending for education has increased by $6 billion. The remaining revenue will be split between the state’s rainy day fund and certain debts. The governor plans to use unexpected revenues to build a financial cushion for the 2027–28 fiscal year.
However, despite these positive developments, Ramos-Yamamoto noted that there are still areas that need improvement.
California has faced its fair share of hardships. However, according to Ramos-Yamamoto, the governor’s May Revision fails to adequately address the challenges posed by H.R. 1, leaving low-income Californians with limited support.
“The May Revise fails to respond in a meaningful way and ultimately makes it harder for people with low incomes to access basic supports. We know that California faces many challenges today, including rising costs, and given this reality, state leaders shouldn’t make things worse and make it even harder for Californians to make ends meet,” said Ramos-Yamamoto.
Ramos-Yamamoto also noted that the May Revision does not sufficiently address federal threats and instead creates additional barriers to Medi-Cal, particularly for immigrant Californians.
“The governor’s May Revise doesn’t include a plan to address all of the federal threats that we’re seeing, and it creates more barriers to Medi-Cal, especially for immigrant Californians. It provides inadequate funding for counties and food banks to mitigate the harms that we see to CalFresh,” said Ramos-Yamamoto.
The webinar also featured a panel discussion with several speakers. Cori Racela, executive director of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, noted that California subsidies are under attack.
“California subsidies, and as we know, Congress has failed to extend the increased subsidies that we saw during the pandemic, and many terrible final federal rules have been particularly punishing. So people are seeing their premiums skyrocket, and many folks have switched to bronze plans, which save on premiums, but dramatically increase on deductibles and copayments,” said Racela.
Racela also discussed the uncertainty surrounding access to healthcare under changing federal policies.
“We’re in a very uncertain environment where we used to be able to say like, getting healthcare was safe, and as we’ve seen ICE enforcements and changes in the federal rules about what are safe spaces and safe locations, a lot of that is, very sadly, still up in the air,” said Racela.
For more information on the May Revision and its potential impacts on Californians, the California Budget & Policy Center has published a detailed breakdown of the governor’s 2026–27 May Revision. The full analysis can be found at: https://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/first-look-understanding-the-governors-2026-27-may-revision/.
