Unemployment Remains High for Women, Asian, Black, and Latinx Californians Six Months into Recession

SACRAMENTO – Unemployment remains persistently high for Asian, Black, and Latinx Californians, and other Californians of color as well as women six months into the COVID-19 pandemic and recession, according to a new report by the California Budget & Policy Center. The Budget Center analyzed recently released data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and found California is still down by 1.7 million jobs because of the COVID-19 crisis – about 400,000 more jobs than the state lost due to the Great Recession.

SACRAMENTO – With calls for Congress to provide additional COVID-19 relief for millions of Americans struggling with the ongoing pandemic and recession,  a new report from the California Budget & Policy Center shows many families do not have enough food on the table, and the problem is particularly acute for Latinx and Black families in California. The Budget Center report — Not Enough to Eat: California Black & Latinx Children Need Policymakers to Act — highlights information from the Census Bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, which provides information on how COVID-19 is affecting families across the state.

SACRAMENTO – As the threat of Congress allowing enhanced unemployment insurance benefits to expire and another month’s rent is due for millions of out-of-work Californians, a new report from the California Budget & Policy Center shows the immense economic pressure low-income households and Black, Latinx, immigrant, and undocumented Californians are under to maintain safe housing and avoid homelessness amid the pandemic.

SACRAMENTO – California women and people of color are taking the biggest hits in the state’s job losses, according to a new report by the California Budget & Policy Center. The Budget Center analyzed recently released data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and found in just two months – between February and April of this year – California lost 2.6 million jobs. That’s twice as many jobs as California lost during the Great Recession over almost three years.

SACRAMENTO – A new report from the California Budget & Policy Center shows how much money is available across the state in response to calls at the state and local levels to end police brutality, reform local policing, and reduce incarceration that has killed and abused Black Californians for generations. The new Budget Center report finds that the state of California and its cities and counties spend roughly $50 billion annually on local law enforcement, the criminal legal system, and incarceration in state prisons and county jails.

California’s state budget would have received $11.2 billion more revenue in 2017 had corporations paid the same share of their income in taxes that year as they did in 1981, according to a new report from the California Budget & Policy Center. As California faces an estimated $54 billion budget shortfall and policymakers are charged with helping people in the ongoing COVID-19 health and economic crisis, there is a substantial need for new funding and resources. One place policymakers can immediately look: corporate taxes. Corporations pay less of their income in state taxes today – even amid the COVID-19 economic crisis – than they did in the 1980s.

The California Budget & Policy Center, a nonpartisan, data-driven organization with a focus on evaluating public policies and their effect on Californians with low and middle incomes, released the following statement from Executive Director Chris Hoene following the release of Governor Newsom’s revised 2020-21 state budget.