EDD

Lawmakers have twice postponed a key hearing on the Employment Development Department — and it won't happen until after the recall election.

Will voters in the California recall blame Gavin Newsom for backlogged unemployment claims and billions in fraud? Republican candidates are counting on it.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. With hundreds of thousands of jobless Californians waiting more than three weeks for the state Employment Development Department to process their claims, the agency announced Thursday that it will start automatically paying benefits to claimants who have already cleared fraud filters and verified their identity and who continue to […]

Good morning, California. It’s Tuesday, July 20. Many thanks to Ben Christopher for filling in for me while I was out sick! Static unemployment rate Looking at California’s latest unemployment numbers, you’d be forgiven for thinking the state is still under lockdown. That’s because the jobless rate didn’t budge from May to June: It remained […]

With a record state budget surplus and $27 billion in additional federal stimulus dollars, the Legislature and governor should commit to paying down the $22 billion unemployment insurance debt.

Gov. Newsom's predecessor poked a hole in his budget bubble by calling the state's spending "not sustainable" and predicting "fiscal stress."

Just how dysfunctional is California’s unemployment department? Apparently so dysfunctional that Bank of America, which since 2010 has had an exclusive contract with the state to deliver unemployment benefits through prepaid debit cards, wants to end the contract — even though the Employment Development Department just renewed it for another two years. The news, first […]

Distance learning is dead. Long live distance learning — or something like it. Last week, a waiver allowing California schools to engage in distance learning expired — putting the state on track to resume full-time in-person instruction in the fall. But on Monday, state lawmakers introduced an amended budget bill that would require schools to […]

The state of California is paying itself $500,000 for administering Gov. Gavin Newsom’s vaccine lottery. The news, which I first reported Thursday, comes about a week after Newsom wrapped up a whirlwind series of events in which he gave away millions of dollars and other prizes to encourage Californians to get the COVID-19 vaccine. It’s […]

How you interpret California’s latest unemployment numbers may have a lot to do with whether you’re a glass half-full or glass half-empty kind of person. If you’re the former, Friday’s report from the Employment Development Department is cause to celebrate: It shows that California’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.9% in May, down from April’s revised […]