California lawmakers approve $600 stimulus payments for lower-wage workers

People wait in line for food boxes in Los Angeles.
(Image credit: Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images)

The California state Legislature approved a $7.6 billion COVID-19 economic relief package on Monday that includes $600 stimulus payments to residents earning $30,000 a year or less and more than $2.1 billion in grants and fee waivers for small businesses.

The stimulus payments will be delivered quickly, a spokesman for the California Department of Finance told the Los Angeles Times — on average, about four to five weeks after a person files their 2020 state tax returns. About 5.7 million payments will be made, totaling $2.3 billion, to help "lower-wage workers" who have been "disproportionately impacted" by the coronavirus pandemic, state Sen. Nancy Skinner (D) said.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.