The COVID-19 pandemic has generated severe public health and economic impacts in California, as elsewhere. This report by PERI Co-Director Robert Pollin proposes a California recovery program that is capable of exerting an effective counterforce against the state’s economic collapse in the short run while also building a durable foundation for an economically viable and ecologically sustainable longer-term recovery. This anti-austerity recovery agenda includes the following: establishing effective public health interventions; clean energy investments and high-road job creation; upgrading California’s public infrastructure; just transition for all displaced workers; and financing a sustainable recovery.
