Unemployment benefits paid to Calif. workers due to COVID top $81 billion

In a statement released on Thursday, the Employment Development Department (EDD) says that to help support California workers, their families, and their local communities struggling through this historic COVID-19 pandemic, the department has issued $81.8 billion in unemployment benefits since mid-March.

Last week alone, the EDD paid an average of $678 million a day in benefits – a 962% increase over benefits paid during the same week of the Great Recession in 2010 (an average of $64 million a day). So far in this pandemic, the EDD has processed 12.6 million claims between
the regular Unemployment Insurance (UI) program and extension claims, as well as the separate Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.

In the table above, provided by the EDD, one can see the total number of applications submitted, the total number of claims processed, the total amount of benefits paid, and the number of individuals who were paid benefits.