How much money has been paid in Golden State stimulus in California?

On 1 November the California Franchise Tax Board (CFTB) proceeded with the next round of Golden State stimulus checks, the direct payments being sent to roughly two-thirds of Californians.

The programme is funded by the California Comeback Plan, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s attempt to stimulate the state’s local economy after it was ravaged by the pandemic and associated restrictions.

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More than 1.15 million payments are include in the latest batch, which will cost the state $857 million. This follows the 4.5 million stimulus checks previously distributed by the CFTB, at a total cost of $3.2 billion.

The tax authority estimates that the latest round of payments, which are mostly physical stimulus checks, may take up to three weeks to arrive. Once completed, the CFTB will have paid out more than $4 billion in Golden State stimulus checks.

How much will the Golden State stimulus checks cost in total?

When the $100 billion package was passed back in July, Newsom said that the California Comeback Plan was designed to kick-start the state’s economic recovery. The bill, largely funded by the previous year’s record-breaking $75 billion budget surplus, funds various state-wide programmes and initiatives.

Newsom said: “Harnessing the largest surplus in state history, we’re making transformative investments across the board that will help bring all our communities roaring back from the pandemic – and pay dividends for generations to come.”

At the time, the state put aside $12 billion to cover the cost of the Golden State stimulus checks. However eligible residents had to have submitted their 2020 state tax returns by 15 October to qualify for the payments, so it appears that the final cost may be lower than originally anticipated.

Californians receive CalFresh boost

As well as the state-wide stimulus checks millions of Californians will be better off thanks to an expansion to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known locally as CalFresh, benefits. In 2019 around 3.3 million people in the state utilise the food stamps, but by July 2021 that number had shot up to 4.3 million.

This considerable rise has been attributed to the financial hardship brought about by the pandemic and last year the state announced a temporary increase to mitigate for the fact children were no longer able to receive free meals at school due to the pandemic.

In October 2021 the state announced that the increase will be made permanent. This means that recipients will see their monthly CalFresh payments increase by $95 on average.