Initial claims rose 11.7% in California for the week of November 13 while dropping 12.2% in the rest of the country. The seasonally adjusted number being reported for the US as a whole was relatively unchanged.

Once again reflecting the lagging recovery progress within the state, California claims were 25.5% of the national total. California claims were 52% above the average in pre-pandemic 2019, while the US level reached a new pandemic period low, only 11% above the 2019 average.

As reported for the week of November 6, the revised EDD backlog dropped 32.2%, while the backlog due to all sources dropped 22.7%.

In the related call center data, overall activity, in general, continued declining. While also improving, it still required an average of 4.2 calls to reach EDD.

In the most recent data from the EDD, California paid out a total of $178.4 billion in benefits under all the UI programs since the week of March 7, 2020, and through the week of November 6, 2021. The most current estimate from EDD is that $20 billion of unemployment benefits was paid out to fraudulent claims, much of which was from the federal pandemic enhancements but which also includes the base payments from the regular program that, in the absence of budget action, will be paid back through higher taxes on employers.

The most recent data from the US Department of Labor indicates California’s outstanding loans as of November 9 from the Federal Unemployment Account were $19.3 billion. EDD’s May projections indicated a $24.3 billion deficit by the end of 2021 and $26.7 billion by the end of 2022. The regular October revision does not appear to have been released yet.

The latest federal debt data again shows this issue remains limited to 10 states and one territory (the Virgin Islands), with 92% of the debt owed by only 5 states. California constitutes 43% of the overall total. As discussed in a prior report, a recent Tax Foundation analysis shows that the issue has been handled differently elsewhere, with 31 states using $15.4 billion of their federal pandemic relief funds under the CARES Act and ARPA to support their unemployment funds. California is listed is allocating a total of only $6 million for this purpose, in spite of receiving the largest share of the federal funds and running up by far the largest state UI fund debt. Instead, California employers remain faced with one of the largest tax increases in the state’s history even as they continue to provide the base for a continuing surge in state revenues.

As reported by the Department of Finance, general fund revenues through the end of September are already running $13.9 billion ahead of the levels projected in the current budget bill. In their just-released Fiscal Outlook for the 2022-23 budget cycle, LAO projects a discretionary surplus of $31 billion in their mid-range forecast, and up to $60 billion in the high end. Operating surpluses are also expected to continue in the $3 billion to $8 billion range in the following years.