BRIEFS: Money In LA: COVID-19 Spending, Guaranteed Income Pilot and California Jobs

Tracking LA’s  Spending

LOS ANGELES — Controller Ron Galperin May 13, released an updated COVID-19 Spending Tracker for the City of Los Angeles showing money spent in response to the pandemic. Since March 2020, city departments reported nearly $1 billion in expenditures — mostly for programs and supplies, homeless housing, staffing and overtime, rental assistance and testing and vaccines.

Here’s a snapshot of LA’s COVID-19 spending:

Total spent: $984.8 million

Supplies and programs: $843 million

Project Homekey: $118 million

Staffing and overtime: $176 million

Emergency Rental Assistance: $94.5 million

Testing and vaccinations: $73.9 million

Details: https://lacontroller.org/data-stories-and-maps/covidspending/

LA County to Create Guaranteed Income Pilot Program

LOS ANGELES COUNTY —On May 18, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a motion, by Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, to create a countywide Poverty Alleviation Policy Agenda and Guaranteed Income Pilot Program. The program will provide a minimum of 1,000 residents up to $1,000 for three years, according to the motion itself. Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who co-authored the motion, said the program will have at least 4,300 participants. 

The motion says that poverty alleviation is a county priority, and directs the CEO to work with key county departments to create a Guaranteed Income Pilot Implementation Plan within 60 days. In addition, they are to choose target populations, which could include transitional age youth, women released from incarceration and survivors of domestic violence.

California’s April Jobs Report 

SACRAMENTO –  The May 21, April jobs report showed that California added 101,800 jobs in April, following 132,400 jobs created in March and 156,100 jobs created in February:

Gov. Gavin Newsom said “California is continuing to lead the nation’s economic recovery, adding 38 percent of all the jobs created throughout the entire country. Over the past three months, California has created 390,300 jobs.” 

According to the April jobs report, California’s unemployment rate remained at 8.3% in April as the state’s employers gained 101,800 non-farm payroll jobs, per data released May 21, by the California Employment Development Department or EDD from two surveys. This comes after March’s upwards-revised (+12,800 jobs) month-over gain of 132,400 jobs. Of the 2,714,800 total nonfarm jobs lost in March and April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, California has now regained 1,302,100 jobs (48%) since May 2020. The unemployment rate of 8.3% in April is nearly half of the 16% peak hit one year ago but is still 4% above the level seen in February 2020 before the pandemic hit.

Details: www.edd.ca.gov/Newsroom/unemployment-april-2021.htm