The 2016 Playbook will be the policy guide at the fifth annual Summit in Sacramento and will bring focus to discussions there regarding upward mobility in California and how to advance the Summit’s One Million Challenges: One million more skilled workers, one million more homes, and one million more acre-feet of water each year.

To be effective, state policies focused on poverty and upward mobility will need to accommodate for these regional differences. This will be a major theme of the 2016 California Economic Summit—and a focus of the Summit’s work in 2017. On December 13-14 in Sacramento, several options will be considered, including expanding the scope of existing Challenges and introducing a new focus on producing more middle-income jobs. As it has in other areas, the Summit can serve as a backbone to support regional efforts, while also working with state leaders to ensure poverty reduction and upward mobility strategies are tailored to the diversity of California’s regional needs.