California stimulus payments coming soon
A new round of stimulus cash is heading to California residents by the end of August, according to the state’s Franchise Tax Board.
On July 12, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 129, which includes $12 billion in cash relief for middle-class families “hit hardest by the pandemic.”
The Golden State Stimulus payments are being drawn from federal pandemic recovery funds and the state’s $75.7 billion budget surplus.
Newsom’s office estimates nearly twothirds of Californians will be eligible for a stimulus check of $600. Qualifying families with children will receive an additional $500.
Similar to the federal stimulus payments, the money will be sent either by direct deposit to bank accounts used for annual tax refunds or by paper checks.
A representative of the state’s Franchise Tax Board said Monday that payments will start going out by the end of August and continue in batches every two weeks.
To qualify, residents must:
• File 2020 taxes by Oct. 15, 2021.
• Have adjusted gross income of $0 to $75,000 for the 2020 tax year.
• Be a state resident for more than half of the 2020 tax year.
• Be a state resident the date payment is issued.
• Cannot be claimed as a dependent by another taxpayer. A dependent is a qualifying child or qualifying relative.
Excluded from the payments are those whose income is solely derived from benefits such as Supplemental Security Income and State Supplementary Payment and the Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, Social Security, CalWorks, unemployment, state disability insurance and VA disability.
Earlier this year, the Golden State Stimulus program distributed its first payments of $600 or $1,200 for low-income families that receive the state’s earned income tax credit. Those families typically earn less than $30,000 annually.
To get an estimate on your California stimulus payment, go to ftb.ca.gov.
Hawaii asks you to stay home
Hawaii’s governor asked last week that visitors and residents reduce travel to the islands to essential business only while the state struggles to control COVID-19 as the highly contagious delta variant spreads in the community.
Gov. David Ige wants to curtail travel to Hawaii through the end of October. “It is a risky time to be traveling right now,” he said.
He said restaurant capacity has been restricted and there’s limited access to rental cars.
Ige stopped short of a mandate, saying it’s a different time now than last year when strict travel rules that required quarantining essentially shut down Hawaii’s tourism industry.
The Bahamas and Morocco are now among the highest-risk destinations for travelers, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s regularly revised travel advisories list.
People should avoid traveling to locations designated with the “Level 4: COVID-19 Very High” notice, the CDC recommends. Anyone who must travel should be fully vaccinated first, the agency advises. Other destinations the CDC recommends avoiding, for now, are the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Lebanon and St. Martin.
State jobless claims rise again
California workers filed more initial claims for unemployment last week than they did the week before, raising questions about whether the state’s job market is recuperating from COVID-linked ailments.
During the week ending July 31, California workers filed 65,500 claims for jobless benefits, up 1,000 from the week ending July 24, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.
California last week produced one-fifth of all the jobless claims filed in the United States.
Nationwide, workers filed 385,000 initial claims for unemployment last week, down 14,000 from the first-time claims the week before, the Labor Department reported. These numbers were adjusted to account for seasonal volatility.