SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KRON) — Governor Gavin Newsom Friday declared California is now officially in a pandemic-induced recession.
With 3.1 million unemployment claims and an unemployment rate at 5.3%, Gov. Newsom says California’s economy is in a recession as a result of COVID-19.
“We want in real time to demonstrate meaningful reforms, meaningful changes,” Newsom said.
The governor announced Friday he’s tapped dozens of business leaders to an economic recovery task force.
The committee has 80 members across numerous industries.
Newsom tapped the state’s four former governors into the group, along with many big name businessmen including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger.
“We are blessed to have the kind of human resources that only a nation state could be afforded.,” Newsom said. “We’ve tasked 80 of them to begin to work through each and every sector of our economy to put together actionable, tangible items that we can use for short term, medium and long term economic recovery.”
Newsom appointed billionaire and former Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer to lead the group.
“Resource starved communities have been hit the hardest by this and are suffering the most and disproportionately and that any equitable plan is going to have to put those communities front and center,” Steyer said.
With so many people, Newsom says the members will be split up into subcategories. He says meetings will begin soon.
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