The California Restaurant Foundation launched a new Restaurant Resilience Grant Program.  SoCalGas, PG&E and SDG&E all contributed (and our goal is to find more donors so we can help more restaurants/in other areas).  But for now, small, independently owned restaurants in LA County may qualify for a $3,500 grant.  

The grants are open to restaurants in Los Angeles County with fewer than 50 employees and priority will be given to restaurants owned by women and people of color. Applications will be accepted from April 11- April 18, 2021. The organization is also offering Zoom webinars which will cover details regarding eligibility, applications and additional questions. For additional information, visit Resilience Fund - Restaurants Care. Download the flyer here: 

Shuttered Venue Operators Grant: Small Business Administration Now Open
The Shuttered Venue Operators Grant (SVOG) program was established by the Economic Aid to Hard-Hit Small Businesses, Nonprofits, and Venues Act, and amended by the American Rescue Plan Act. The program includes over $16 billion in grants to shuttered venues, to be administered by SBA’s Office of Disaster Assistance. Eligible applicants may qualify for grants equal to 45% of their gross earned revenue, with the maximum amount available for a single grant award of $10 million. $2 billion is reserved for eligible applications with up to 50 full-time employees. Click Here to Learn More

LA County Mortgage Relief: The Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs (DCBA) is pleased to announce the new LA County Mortgage Relief Program, a partnership with Neighborhood Housing Services of LA County (NHS) and local HUD-approved housing counseling agencies. The $5.5 million initiative developed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will support property owners who have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Mortgage Relief Program will include a relief fund which provides grants of up to $20,000 for qualified property owners, plus expanded foreclosure prevention counseling services. The program is structured to benefit single-family homeowners and property owners with four or fewer units living in communities highly impacted by COVID-19. This includes low- and moderate-income communities and those who have suffered a higher percentage of significant health impacts during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Properties must be owner occupied.

California Rent Relief for Tenants and Landlords: The state recently introduced the CA COVID-19 Rent Relief program that offers income-qualified renters financial assistance to help pay for past due and future rent and utilities. This program applies to Pasadena renters who meet the qualifying income levels and landlords who rent to eligible tenants.

Under the program, an eligible renter can receive up to 25% ofunpaid rent that was accrued between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, as well as receive additional financial assistance to pay for future rent, which is equal to 25% ofthe monthly amount. Renters can also be granted up to 100% of up to 12 months ofunpaid or future utility bills. This combined offering is intended to support qualified renters to stay housed when California's eviction protections expire on June 30, 2021.

Pasadena landlords can also qualify to receive reimbursement from this program for up to 80% of unpaid rent from "eligible" renters accrued between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021. The California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency is administering the program. Interested tenants and landlords can apply for rent and utility bills payment relief at https://housing.ca.gov or by calling 833.430.2121.

California Re-opening: As California COVID-19 metrics improve — the state now has the lowest positivity rate in the country — Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday announced plans to reopen the economy on June 15 if there is sufficient vaccine supply for residents 16 years and older and if hospitalization rates are stable and low.

The date is not set in stone as the state will monitor hospitalization rates, vaccine access and vaccine efficacy against variants to determine whether the goal needs to be changed.

The Numbers: Pasadena reported six new cases on Friday with no new fatalities. The city ahs seen 11,169 total cases to date with 339 deaths. The city remains in Phase 1B but businesses are being allowed to reopen at a faster pace due to rapidly declining case rates. Pasadena Public Health has received 22,730 vaccine doses and administered 19, 409. In total, 71, 890 doses have been allocated to Pasadena providers with 49, 160 adminstered by PPHD and other partners. 

LA County reported an additional 753 new cases on Saturday, April 10th with 36 additional deaths. California saw an additional 2,977 cases with 89 new fatalities. 

The past 12 months have been challenging for every Californian. In keeping with the focus of putting the health and safety of Californians first, the California Franchise Tax Board has joined with the Internal Revenue Service to extend their tax filing deadlines to May 17! For more information, visit the Internal Revenue Service and the California Franchise Tax Board websites. Internal Revenue Service and CA Franchise Tax Board

Virus: When the coronavirus began to spread in the United States last spring, many experts warned of the danger posed by surfaces. Researchers reported that the virus could survive for days on plastic or stainless steel, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised that if someone touched one of these contaminated surfaces and then touched their eyes, nose or mouth, they could become infected. Americans responded in kind, wiping down groceries, quarantining mail and clearing drugstore shelves of Clorox wipes. Facebook closed two of its offices for a “deep cleaning.” New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority began disinfecting subway cars every night. Reversing some of those concerns, the CDC updated its surface cleaning guidelines and noted that the risk of contracting the virus from touching a contaminated surface was less than 1 in 10,000.

During the early days of the pandemic, many experts believed that the virus spread primarily through large respiratory droplets. These droplets are too heavy to travel long distances through the air but can fall onto objects and surfaces. In this context, a focus on scrubbing down every surface seemed to make sense.

But over the last year, it has become increasingly clear that the virus spreads primarily through the air — in both large and small droplets, which can remain aloft longer — and that scouring door handles and subway seats does little to keep people safe.

Catching the virus from surfaces remains theoretically possible, but it requires many things to go wrong: a lot of fresh, infectious viral particles to be deposited on a surface, and then for a relatively large quantity of them to be quickly transferred to someone’s hand and then to their face. In most cases, cleaning with simple soap and water — in addition to hand-washing and mask-wearing — is enough to keep the odds of surface transmission low, the C.D.C.’s updated cleaning guidelines say. In most everyday scenarios and environments, people do not need to use chemical disinfectants, the agency notes.

City of Hope infectious disease and medical oncology experts offer the latest Covid advice and recommendations for cancer patients, caregivers and survivors.

The Economy: Unemployment claims in California shot to their highest level in three months, topping 145,000 filings last week, the government reported Thursday. California workers filed 145,400 initial claims for unemployment during the week that ended April 3, an increase of 39,000 from the 106,400 claims filed the prior week, the U.S. Labor Department said. Nationwide, jobless claims totaled 744,000 during the week ending April 3, up 16,000 from the week before. California now accounts for 19.6% — about one out of every five — of the jobless claims being filed in the United States, Labor Department data shows. The current weekly claims totals in California are the highest they’ve been since the week ending Jan. 9, when workers filed 182,600 initial jobless claims.

For the week ending March 27, more than 3.7 million people in the U.S. were receiving traditional state unemployment benefits, the government said. If you include supplemental federal programs that were established last year to help the unemployed endure the health crisis, a total of 18.2 million are receiving some form of jobless aid the week of March 20.

Fed Chair Powell says a new normal is near: The U.S. economy, boosted by quickening vaccinations and signs of rapid hiring, is headed toward a strong recovery, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday. But he cautioned that not all will immediately benefit. “There are a number of factors that are coming together to support a brighter outlook for the U.S. economy,” Powell said during the virtual spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Those factors are putting the nation “on track to allow a full reopening of the economy fairly soon.”

Still, Powell said many Americans who are out of work will struggle to find new jobs because some industries will likely be smaller than they were before the pandemic. In other cases, employers are seeking to use technology instead of workers where possible, he said. “It’s important to remember we’re not going back to the same economy,” Powell said. “This will be a different economy.”

Powell stressed on Thursday that even as economic prospects look brighter in the United States, getting the world vaccinated and controlling the coronavirus pandemic remain critical to the global outlook. While some advanced economies, including the United States, are moving quickly toward widespread vaccination, many emerging market countries lag far behind: Some have administered as little as one dose per 1,000 residents.

Mr. Powell joined a chorus of global policy officials in emphasizing how important it is that all nations — not just the richest ones — are able to widely protect against the coronavirus. Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said policymakers needed to remain focused on public health as the key policy priority.

From the New York Times: As office vacancies climb to their highest levels in decades with businesses giving up office space and embracing remote work, the real estate industry in many American cities faces a potentially grave threat. Businesses have discovered during the pandemic that they can function with nearly all of their workers out of the office, an arrangement many intend to continue in some form. That could wallop the big property companies that build and own office buildings — and lead to a sharp pullback in construction, steep drops in office rents, fewer people frequenting restaurants and stores, and potentially perilous declines in the tax revenue of city governments and school districts.

In only a year, the market value of office towers in Manhattan, home to the country’s two largest central business districts, has plummeted 25 percent, according to city projections released on Wednesday, contributing to an estimated $1 billion drop-off in property tax revenue.

JPMorgan Chase, Ford Motor, Salesforce, Target and more are giving up expensive office space, and others are considering doing so. Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the largest private-sector employer in New York City, wrote in a letter to shareholders this week that remote work would “significantly reduce our need for real estate.” For every 100 employees, he said, his bank “may need seats for only 60 on average.”

Across the country, the vacancy rate for office buildings in city centers has steadily climbed over the past year to reach 16.4 percent, according to Cushman & Wakefield, the highest in about a decade. That number could climb further, even as vaccinations allow some people to go back to work, if companies keep giving up office space because of hybrid or fully remote work.

So far, landlords like Boston Properties and SL Green have not suffered huge financial losses, having survived the past year by collecting rent from tenants locked into long leases — the average contract for office space runs about seven years.

But as leases slowly come up for renewal, property owners could be left with scores of empty floors. At the same time, many new office buildings are under construction — 124 million square feet nationwide, or enough for roughly 700,000 workers. Those changes could drive down rents, which were touching new highs before the pandemic. And rents help determine assessments that are the basis for property tax bills.

From the New York Times:

The Biden administration has unveiled its corporate tax overhaul, intended to raise $2.5 trillion over 15 years to pay for an infrastructure program. “Debate is welcome. Compromise is inevitable. Changes are certain,” President Biden said, but he stressed that “inaction is not an option.”

“America’s corporate tax system has long been broken,” the Treasury secretary Janet Yellen wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed coinciding with the plan’s release. In addition to raising the headline corporate tax rate, the administration’s proposal takes aim at companies that shift profits abroad, especially to low-tax havens like Bermuda or Ireland. Some of the changes could be enacted by regulation, but things like raising the corporate tax rate will need the approval of Congress.

What’s in the plan? Here are the main provisions:
  • Raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. The increase from 21 percent would put the U.S. more in line with other big countries and, the administration says, lift corporate tax receipts that have fallen to their lowest levels as a share of the economy since World War II.
  • Ensure big companies pay at least 15 percent in taxes. A minimum tax on book income for companies with annual profits of $2 billion or more would mean firms that use deductions, exemptions and other methods to reduce their liability wouldn’t be able to go lower than a certain level. If this had been in place in recent years, 45 companies would have faced the tax.
  • Strengthen the global minimum tax to end profit shifting. This would double the rate on foreign intangible assets introduced by the Trump administration in 2017. The Biden administration also says it will push for global agreement on common rates, to discourage companies from shopping around for tax jurisdictions. Finance ministers from the Group of 20 nations said yesterday that they hoped to agree on a global minimum tax rate by midyear, but previous efforts have faltered when it came to nailing down the details.
  • Punish companies that headquarter in low-tax countries. A provision in the plan would target “inversions,” where American companies merge with a foreign entity in order to move headquarters to a low-tax country.
  • Replace fossil-fuel tax subsidies with clean-energy incentives. Previous attempts to eliminate subsidies on oil and gas met with stiff industry and congressional opposition.
  • Beef up the I.R.S. The agency’s enforcement budget has fallen by 25 percent over the past decade, and the proposal would bolster the budget for experts in complex corporate litigation.

What effect would it have? A Wharton School budget model concluded that the corporate tax rate increase would “not meaningfully affect the normal return on investment,” but when combined with the proposed minimum tax on book income, business investment would fall somewhat. All told, by 2050 the tax provisions would reduce government debt by more than 11 percent from the current baseline, but also reduce G.D.P. by 0.5 percent over that period.

Looking Ahead: U.S. intelligence officials are painting a dark picture of the world’s future, writing in a report released Thursday that the coronavirus pandemic has deepened economic inequality, strained government resources and fanned nationalist sentiments.
Those assessments are included in a Global Trends report by the government’s National Intelligence Council, a document produced every four years. This year’s report is designed to help policymakers and citizens anticipate the economic, environmental, technological and demographic forces likely to shape the world through the next 20 years.
The document focuses heavily on the impact of the pandemic, calling
it the “most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come.”