California’s lagging economy hinders efforts to close state budget deficit

As Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators spend the next few weeks fashioning a state budget that’s plagued by a multibillion-dollar deficit, they can’t count on a booming economy to make their task easier.

California’s recovery from the devastating economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been sluggish at best, trailing what’s happening in the nation as a whole and in the state’s archrivals, such as Texas and Florida.

According to Employment Development Department data, there...