Eligible small businesses, nonprofits, sole proprietors and independent contractors can still apply for a COVID-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loan. Learn more about EIDL, the Targeted EIDL Advance and Supplemental Targeted Advance. Learn more
Public health officials in Pasadena reported only a single new COVID-19 infection in the city for a third straight day Friday.
The lone case raised the city’s pandemic total to 11,297 known infections, according to Pasadena Public Health Department data.
With no new deaths reported, a total of 349 people had succumbed to the virus in Pasadena. Over the prior week, the city saw an average of one new infection each day, records show.
Regionally, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health documented 234 infections and 14 additional fatalities on Friday, raising the county’s overall total to 1,244,662 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 24,378 deaths.
Just over 250 patients were hospitalized in the county with the virus, the agency said in a written statement. Seventeen percent of them were being housed in intensive care units.
With the state’s reopening less than two weeks away, L.A. County Director of Public Health Barabra Ferrer urged businesses to closely monitor and obey state workplace regulations governing pandemic precautions expected to be released by state officials in the coming days.
“Businesses following required safety modifications at worksites remains an important strategy to keep COVID-19 transmission low as we increase the number of people vaccinated,” she said.
“A fully vaccinated workplace is the safest worksite to prevent COVID-19 infection and will allow for the fewest worksite requirements,” Ferrer said. “We urge employers to make it easy for all workers to get vaccinated by bringing vaccines to the worksite or offering paid time off for staff to get vaccinated. Ensuring worker safety is essential.”
The California Department of Public Health reported 1,047 new infections and 87 deaths on Friday, bringing the statewide totals to 3,687,736 cases of COVID-19 and 62,179 fatalities.
The state’s average positivity rate over the prior week stood at 0.9%, according to CDPH data.
As of Friday, L.A. County represented 34% of California’s COVID-19 infections and 39% of the state’s deaths.
State extends last call on sale of booze for delivery, to-go By Rong-Gong Lin II and Luke Money for the LA Times. In a boost for the struggling dining industry, California is extending the ability of restaurants and bars to serve alcoholic drinks in outdoor dining areas, for delivery and to-go through the rest of the year, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday.
Through Dec. 31, restaurants, bars, breweries and wineries can continue to serve alcoholic drinks in areas such as sidewalks and parking lots, where businesses have set up tables during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, “if you do takeout food, you’ll be able to get the takeout cocktails,” Newsom said. The same applies to deliveries.
“I’m very excited about this . And I think this is a good thing for our economic recovery. It’s also a good thing for public health — because we want to encourage more people to still be outside. This pandemic is not behind us,” Newsom said, reflecting on people who have yet to be vaccinated.
In a letter to local governments, Newsom also urged officials to allow temporary dining areas, expanded takeout and delivery options, and work with restaurant owners to operate in spaces not ordinarily consistent with local zoning laws. He pointed to Los Angeles’ “L.A. Al Fresco” and San Diego’s “Slow Streets Programs” as among models for other cities. Newsom said he’s hoping in the coming months to pursue state legislation that will make it easier for local governments to retain outdoor dining if they so choose as the pandemic recedes.
New guidance on workplace vaccine mandates: (From the New York Times): As businesses prepare to bring employees back to the office in the coming months, their executives have been anxiously debating some thorny questions.
Should employees be required to be vaccinated before they return? Should workers have to prove they’ve had a shot (or two)?
To help them make these politically and legally fraught decisions, businesses have pressed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for guidance. Late last week, the agency said that companies may mandate vaccines as a requisite for coming into the office.
But our colleague Lauren Hirsch, who writes for our sister DealBook newsletter, reported that the guidance also comes with a big caveat: Any vaccine mandate must abide by the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act.
The A.D.A. requires companies to ensure some health information is kept confidential and accommodate those unable to be vaccinated.
The E.E.O.C also reminded employers to consider the fact that access to the vaccine is not yet equitably distributed. Certain groups face greater barriers to receiving the vaccine, and the agency said that employers should consider that in any back-to-work requirements.
The legal considerations, along with state laws and concerns about privacy, have spurred many companies to rely on incentives, rather than mandates. Some companies, including Olive Garden’s parent company, Darden Restaurants, are offering paid time off for employees to be vaccinated. Walmart is offering a $75 bonus to those who show proof of vaccination, while some financial firms are allowing vaccinated workers to go mask-free in the office.
The E.E.O.C said incentives are fine, but warned companies that they cannot be coercive — like giving vaccinated employees a large discount on medical plan coverage.
While some companies may wait to see how far incentives go in convincing employees to get a shot, others are moving ahead with broad vaccination requirements. Saks will require employees to be fully vaccinated when they start going to the office this fall. Delta will require new employees to be vaccinated, while schools like Columbia and Harvard are requiring vaccination for faculty, in addition to students.
Outdoor Dining: A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced a bill that would pave the way for the temporary outdoor dining, alcohol sale and parklet regulations that are in place to become permanent. It passed the State Senate unanimously on Tuesday.
On Thursday, Gov. Gavin Newsom extended the relaxed regulations through the end of the year, bridging the gap until the proposed new legislation would go into effect.
Fromn the LA Times: Panel backs end to masks on job- State safety board says workers shouldn’t need the gear indoors if all are vaccinated.
By Luke Money and Rong-Gong Lin II
A California safety board Thursday recommended relaxing workplace safety rules for people vaccinated against COVID-19, meaning that on June 15, employees will probably be able to take off their masks in a room if everyone there is vaccinated.
As the pandemic continues to wane and more people are inoculated against COVID-19, confidence has grown among officials that face coverings and social distancing are no longer a must for fully vaccinated Californians — though they remain important for those who have yet to roll up their sleeves. That’s why the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board, whose seven members are appointed by the governor, ultimately unanimously opted to push the rules forward, saying it was time to begin relaxing mask-wearing rules.
The new rules proposed by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, or Cal/OSHA, are still subject to review by the state Office of Administrative Law. But it’s expected the office will approve the rules, which can go into effect on June 15 — the same day as California is set to fully reopen its economy. The rules would allow workers in a room to take off their masks if every person there is fully vaccinated and does not have COVID-19 symptoms. Masks would still be required if anyone in the room is not fully vaccinated.
Someone is considered fully vaccinated 14 days after receiving a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines or the single shot of Johnson & Johnson. Workplaces would need to have workers’ vaccine records on file to comply with Cal/OSHA regulations.
But workers in places such as retail stores and restaurants, as well as others who interact with members of the public, will still need to mask up. Workers in some other settings, such as hospitals, will not be affected by the rule change.
The proposal also calls for ending the requirement that workers be physically distant from other people starting July 31. Until then, employees in indoor settings or outdoor events of 10,000 or more people will need to continue physical-distancing practices or be offered respirators — like N95 masks — that filter out fine particles in the air.
Other board members said they wanted the state to move faster, and to align with looser standards suggested for the public by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and, as of June 15, by the California Department of Public Health. Those standards say there’s no need for fully vaccinated people to wear masks in almost all settings.
The board voted to create a committee to work with Cal/OSHA to address the concerns of a majority of board members, who initially voted to reject Cal/OSHA’s proposal but ultimately approved it as board members agreed to work on a revision.
Thursday’s vote capped an extraordinary 9½-hour meeting — one of the longest and most contentious in recent memory.
Some employers were particularly vocal about one part of the proposal, which says that starting July 31, employers must make available a respirator, such as an N95 mask, for voluntary use by employees who are not fully vaccinated and work in indoor settings or outdoor settings with more than 10,000 people.
Unvaccinated employees can still choose to wear a conventional mask.
Some business representatives opposed Cal/OSHA’s proposal as being unnecessarily complicated and potentially drawing a distinction between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated that could essentially create two classes of workers and an environment where some employees were subject to harassment. They worried that requirements could draw attention to private medical decisions to not get vaccinated.
One law expert said any workplace regulation related to COVID-19 — mask mandates, distancing or vaccination status — will be difficult to enforce, outside of public complaints filed to the health department. That is especially so for restrictions, such as indoor physical distancing, proposed to stay in place until July 31 — well past the governor’s June 15 reopening date.
set to widely relax its mask rules as part of its long-anticipated full reopening.
Starting June 15, California will align with the CDC’s recent mask guidance.
Existing state rules generally stipulate that everyone, such as members of the public in a retail store, needs to wear masks in indoor public settings.
Workers are also required to wear face coverings and practice physical distancing unless they’re alone — either in a room or outside. Employees can remove their masks when eating or drinking but must be physically distant from others.
Officials said the decision to wait until June 15 to implement the CDC guidelines was based on giving residents more opportunities to get vaccinated and businesses and workers time to prepare for the change.
Still, the CDC’s May 13 announcement caught many off guard, and sparked some concerns that the nation was repeating the sins of its pandemic past and moving too quickly to relax restrictions.
Such fears have not materialized, however. Newly confirmed coronavirus infections have continued to tumble nationwide in recent weeks, as have COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.
In California, more than 70% of adults have now received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, according to data from the CDC.
Although the state is still short of the 80% threshold many experts believe necessary to achieve long-lasting herd immunity against the coronavirus, the relatively robust level of vaccine coverage provides a strong level of protection, officials and experts say.
Local-level health officials can impose stricter rules than the state’s, but many counties — including Los Angeles — have indicated they plan to follow California’s lead come June 15.
L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said she thought the latest set of proposed workplace rules demonstrated that “at least for now, Cal/OSHA doesn’t want to take any chances with worker safety around the masking.” As Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board agenda documents note: “A very large proportion of California employees will remain unvaccinated as of June 15.”
The Economy: From the Pasadena Star-News: The U.S. economy grew at a somewhat faster pace in April and May despite disruptions that choked supplies to the nations manufacturers, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday.
In the Fed’s latest survey of economic conditions around the nation, several of the central bank’s districts reported that increased vaccination rates and relaxed social-distancing measures were having a positive impact on the economy. But offsetting those gains were headwinds coming from supply-chain problems.
The increase in vaccination rates helped to boost consumer spending, especially in areas such as leisure travel and restaurant dining, the report said.
Factory output increased despite “significant supply chain challenges” that were continuing to disrupt production, it added. The report also noted widespread examples of price increases, with the supplychain disruptions adding to the price pressures.
The Fed’s report, known as the beige book, is based on surveys conducted by the Fed’s 12 regional banks from early April to late May. The information will form the basis of discussion when Fed policymakers meet on June 15-16 to decide the future course of interest rates.
Most analysts believe that, based on the comments of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell and other Fed officials, the central bank will leave rates where they have been for the past year at a record low of 0% to 0.25% as the central bank continues to promote a strong rebound from the pandemic-triggered recession. Businesses in some Feddistricts anticipate continued cost increases for their raw materials, which will prompt them to boost their prices, the report said.
As seen in other economic reports, housing remains one of the stand-out performers of the economy. The beige book said, “Home builders often noted that strong demand, buoyed by low mortgage interest rates, outpaced their capacity to build, leading some to limit sales.”
The survey also found further employment growth, with the strongest gains coming in food services, hospitality and retail — all areas that were hardest hit during the pandemic shutdowns.
Many businesses reported difficulty hiring new workers, especially low-wage hourly workers, truck drivers and skilled tradespeople, according to the survey. The report classified wage growth as moderate, and said a growing number of companies were offering signing bonuses and increased starting wages to attract and retain workers.
Business executives surveyed are optimistic that economic growth will remain solid, the report said.
The overall economy grew at a robust 6.4% rate in the first quarter of the year, and many economists forecast that growth could top 10% in the current April-June quarter. Growth for the full year could exceed 7%, which would be the best showing in nearly four decades, as the economy benefits from a return to more normal operations after last year’s shutdowns.
U.S. employers added a modest 559,000 jobs in May, an improvement from April’s sluggish gain but still evidence that many companies are struggling to find enough workers as the economy rapidly recovers from the pandemic recession. Last month’s job growth was above April’s revised total of 278,000, the Labor Department said Friday, yet well short of employers’ need for labor. The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% from 6.1%.
The speed of the rebound from the recession has caught employers off guard and touched off a scramble to hire. The reopening of the economy, fueledby substantial federal aid and rising vaccinations, has released pent-up demand among consumers to eat out, travel, shop, attend public events and visit with friends and relatives.
The result has been a disconnect between companies and the unemployed: While businesses are rushing to add workers immediately, many of the unemployed are either seeking better jobs than they had before the pandemic, still lack affordable child care, worry about contracting COVID-19 or have decided to retire early.
That mismatch resulted in the sharp slowdown in hiring in April, when employers added far fewer jobs than economists had forecast and many fewer than had been hired in March. The mismatch appears to be easing only moderately for now.
From the New York Times: Workers in retail, hospitality and other service industries bore the brunt of last year’s mass layoffs. But unlike low-wage workers in past recessions, whose earnings power eroded, many of those who held on to their jobs saw their wages rise even during the worst months of the pandemic.
Now, as the economy bounces back and employers need to find staff, workers have the kind of leverage that is more typical of a prolonged boom than the aftermath of a devastating recession. Average earnings for non-managers in leisure and hospitality hit $15 an hour in February for the first time on record; in April, they rose to $15.70, a more than 4.5 percent raise in just two months.
President Biden’s administration is embracing those gains and hoping they shift power away from employers and back toward workers. And Federal Reserve officials have indicated that they would like to see employment and pay rising, because those would be signs that they were making progress toward their goals of full employment and stable prices. The stage is set for an economic experiment, one that tests whether the economy can lift laborers steadily without igniting much-faster price increases that eat away at the gains.
“Instead of workers competing with each other for jobs that are scarce, we want employers to compete with each other to attract workers,” Mr. Biden said in Cleveland last week. “When American workers have more money to spend, American businesses benefit. We all benefit.”
Data on pay gains have been hard to interpret because state and local lockdowns tossed people who earn relatively little out of work, causing average hourly earnings to artificially pop last spring. But when you look across a variety of measures, wages seem to be growing at close to prepandemic levels.
Stimulus: In offering most Americans two more rounds of stimulus checks in the past six months, totaling $2,000 per person, the federal government effectively conducted a huge experiment in safety net policy. Skeptics called the policy wasteful and expensive. The aid followed an earlier round of stimulus checks, sent a year ago, and the results are being scrutinized for lessons on how to help the needy in less extraordinary times.
A new analysis of Census Bureau surveys argues that the two latest rounds of aid significantly improved Americans’ ability to buy food and pay household bills and reduced anxiety and depression, with the largest benefits going to the poorest households and those with children. The analysis offers the fullest look at hardship reduction under the stimulus aid.
Among households with children, reports of food shortages fell 42% from January through April. A broader gauge of financial instability fell 43%. Among all households, frequent anxiety and depression fell by more than 20%.
While the economic rebound and other forms of aid no doubt also helped, the largest declines in measures of hardship coincidedwith the $600 checks that reached most people in January and the $1,400 checks mostly distributed in April.
In the IT COMES AS NO SURPRISE DEPARTMENT: State unemployment claim woes widespread. California and others were unprepared for the demand, a federal report finds. By Sarah D. Wire and Patrick McGreevy
California and other states have struggled to provide expanded unemployment benefits during the pandemic, resulting in “millions of Americans waiting weeks to months for their first unemployment checks,” a Labor Department watchdog confirmed Wednesday. States also failed to adequately prevent massive fraud and improper payments, or to collect necessary data to determine the scope of the problem, the report found.
In the early days of the pandemic, Congress dramatically scaled up unemployment insurance funding and expanded the pool of who would qualify for cash as much of the economy shuddered to a halt.
But states were unprepared to handle the onslaught of new claims from millions of desperate Americans who had lost their jobs when the government ordered businesses to close and people to remain in their homes and avoid public spaces.
It was clear to anyone who had to apply for unemployment after March 2020 that states struggled to distribute the billions in additional aid during the pandemic, implement three new unemployment programs and deal with an unprecedented number of claims.
The Department of Labor’s inspector general warned of problems repeatedly in the last year, but Wednesday’s report was the most comprehensive examination to date of how states did.
Congress is already weighing changes to how unemployment aid is distributed as a result of the missteps during the pandemic. California lawmakers continue to push for an overhaul of the state Employment Development Department, which still is facing delays in approving benefits, and dealing with technology glitches, jammed phone lines and fraud.
California was one of 12 states closely examined in the report, which blamed the nationwide backlog on antiquated state IT systems, insufficient staff to manage the increased number of new claims, and unclear or untimely guidance from the Labor Department.
States and territories run and maintain their own unemployment systems according to state law, but they receive guidance from the federal government.
California has received a record 22.5 million unemployment claims since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020 and has paid an unprecedented $147 billion in benefits. It has determined that at least $11 billion in benefits paid involved fraudulent claims, and it is investigating suspected fraud in an additional $19 billion in claims, including thousands made in the names of prison inmates.
State audits have shown that poor planning by the agency slowed the approval of millions of claims and made it vulnerable to widespread fraud.
The Labor Department inspector general found that most states took more than 30 days to expand unemployment benefits to the new pools approved by Congress, a timeline the report calls “an unreasonable length of time for UI claimants experiencing financial hardships as they struggled to pay bills and satisfy basic needs, such as food and housing.”
California took 32 days to set up the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides money to those who haven’t previously qualified for unemployment, including the self-employed and gig workers. The state took 61 days to implement the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which gives money to people who have exhausted benefits provided by the state but are still unemployed because of the pandemic.
The inspector general also found that states did not perform the checks required or recommended to prevent fraud and other improper payments, such as verifying an applicant’s previous work history or identity. The report found that 19 states did not attempt to reclaim improper payments, such as payments to someone who had returned to work.
The watchdog estimated in January that at least 10% of the $392 billion Congress provided was improperly distributed, and it has warned that, when the expanded benefits expire at the end of the summer, the total of improperly distributed money could be closer to $87.3 billion out of $872.5 billion. Fraud experts estimated the amount is much higher because states and the federal government weren’t collecting necessary data or doing proper identity checks until late last year.
Wednesday’s report recommended a nationwide study of the technological needs of state unemployment systems, and that the federal government help states modernize those systems. It also urged the Labor Department to assist states with claims, overpayment and fraud reporting, and to develop standards for what guidance to provide to states in case temporary unemployment systems need to be put in place again.
The Labor Department agreed with the recommendations and said some were already being put into place.
Congress is expected to weigh measures to overhaul unemployment later this year. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has proposed bringing the 53 separate state and territory systems under the technological umbrella of the federal government. States would still run their own programs and have their own state laws but would all be subject to the same federal standards for wait times and identity verification.
In the last week, California state legislators have approved a raft of bills to force change at the state agency, including requirements to speed up processing of claims and check to make sure people filing claims are not incarcerated.
California’s backlog of claims awaiting action for more than 21 days has grown from 1.02 million on April 10 to 1.13 million, according to a report by the EDD released May 22. The agency answered less than 6% of the 3.95 million phone calls to its call center during the week ending May 22, according to its report. The EDD has hired contractors to staff phone lines and provide computer verification of the identities of claimants, but problems at the agency have become one of the issues cited by those seeking to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom from office. Newsom proposed in his state budget spending tens of millions of dollars to upgrade EDD systems and technology. The governor noted that many other states had the same difficulty processing the flood of claims.