Budget Impact May Not Be As Bad As Might Have Been Expected

There are indications that the budget impact of the coronavirus recession may be less than originally anticipated. (That's not the same as saying the impact was good, of course.) As can be seen from the chart above from the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), income tax withholding cumulative since the start of the crisis is slightly ahead of last year in nominal terms. In real terms (inflation-adjusted), that is likely a small decline. But still...

The chart is from https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/554.

For just the two months of the new fiscal year (2020-21), both the Dept. of Finance and the state controller expected all state tax receipts to the general fund to be about $36 billion. And both are reporting that actual receipts were in fact higher at about $40 billion. 

See https://sco.ca.gov/Files-ARD/CASH/August2020StatementofGeneralFundCashReceiptsandDisbursements.pdf and http://dof.ca.gov/Forecasting/Economics/Economic_and_Revenue_Updates/documents/2020/Sep-20.pdf.