Sacramento voted yes on Measure U in November to replace the previous half-cent sales tax with a full-cent tax that will be in place indefinitely, raising the tax from 7.75 percent to 8.75 percent.

The sales tax increase will go into effect by April 1 of next year and will be used to assist in youth programs, affordable housing, homeless support measures and other community issues, according to an impartial analysis report from the Sacramento City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood.

“The city of Sacramento has since found that we can’t live without this half-cent sales tax, in fact we need more than a half-cent sales tax increase that we passed in 2012,” said Business professor Man Phan.

The sales tax increase is expected to bring in an estimated 95 million dollars annually in revenue compared to the previous half-cent tax revenue, which brought in around 47.3 million dollars annually, according to an article from the Sacramento City Express.

Opponents of the measure believe that the sales tax increase will hurt the poor and that it will increase the city’s pension cost, according to an article from The Sacramento Bee.

Sandra Jelkes, a 52-year-old human services major, said that she hopes that the money made from the tax increase will go towards building more shelters for the homeless but didn’t expect it to actually happen.

“They’ve been saying and promising stuff year after year after year and nothing’s happening, they’re taking more money from the people and not doing enough,” said Jelkes.

Computer science major Jacob Corino, 21, said he hoped that the money was going to go towards infrastructure.

“There should be the precedent of fixing the roads and building new ones because near where I live the roads are in pretty rough shape, so I feel that the money should go towards something like that,” said Corino.

Kenneth Chan, a 22-year-old biology major, said he didn’t mind a sales tax increase but wanted the money to go towards homelessness and education programs.

“The homeless population has greatly increased which is important but the money should go towards helping support education that will help people get jobs as well,” said Chan.

Phan said he wanted to emphasize his concern about the policy’s indefinite existence and how that was going to affect everyone.

Phan also said that the measure that is replacing the previous sales tax increase and will continue to exist indefinitely was a “big question mark” to him.

“Those with a lower income will be hurt because they will have to pay more for essentials,” said Phan.