Coronavirus: California scrambles to issue extra $600 jobless payments

More than 2 million Californians have recently filed for jobless benefits, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday, and state officials are scrambling to get newly out-of-work residents the larger unemployment benefits enabled by the federal CARES Act to ease coronavirus-spawned economic devastation.
Gov. Newsom estimated at a news briefing on Tuesday, April 7 that about 2.3 million people have filed claims for unemployment insurance, a grim assessment that is likely only to intensify pressure to begin t