The Labor Center conducts a wide range of research on low-wage work in California and nationally. Our research focuses on documenting and understanding working conditions in low-wage industries, especially for women, immigrants, and workers of color. We also analyze policies to raise labor standards at the local, state, and national levels.
For an in-depth description of California’s low-wage workforce, see our Data Explorer.
View our Inventory of US City and County Minimum Wage Ordinances.
You can also visit our Black Worker project.
Minimum wage, living wage, and other labor standards studies.
Research on the societal and fiscal costs of low-wage work.
In-depth studies of labor markets and working conditions in low-wage industries.
September 7, 2021
Don’t Mistake the Disappointing Jobs Numbers for a Labor Shortage
August 4, 2021
California’s Labor Market in the Time of COVID-19: 2021 Chartbook
July 20, 2021
With millions of Americans looking for work, why can’t businesses find employees?
October 19, 2020
Labor Center research and Proposition 22
This month the U.S. Department of Labor released its employment projections for the next decade. We analyzed the job quality of the occupations projected to grow the most during this period, focusing specifically on low-wage jobs.
This fact sheet estimates the characteristics and employment numbers of workers in essential industries in California over the period from May 2020 to June 2021
Our minimum wage and living wage tools and resources includes our Inventory of US City and County Minimum Wage Ordinances and a table of current local minimum wages in California.
This data tool tracks the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers in California, and how the state is recovering from these effects. The pandemic left millions of Californians out of work, and while the economy has begun to recover in recent months, some workers continue to struggle. This resource will be updated periodically, as new data becomes available, to allow users to monitor the progress of labor markets in the state.
The Labor Center is working to provide research on how California is experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic; analysis of new policies, what they offer the state’s workers and businesses, and what is still needed; and curated lists of resources, information, and tools for workers and their advocates.
Demand and the high quit rate have made the field slightly better for job seekers and workers over the past few months. But it’s important to put wage gains in context, says Enrique Lopezlira.
Jacobs has been trying to quantify the cost of gig work on taxpayers for several years. A report he published with his colleague Michael Reich said that if Uber and Lyft drivers were employees between 2014 and 2019, the two companies alone would have contributed $413 million to the California Unemployment Insurance Fund.
Enrique Lopezlira, a labor economist at the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center, has studied California’s labor market over the last year and a half. While unemployment rates have been declining, Lopezlira says workers who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic have yet to recover.
California set out in 2016 to become the first state on a path to a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Five years later, how’s that going?
Here’s the current minimum wage in those cities and counties with a higher minimum wage, as of July 1, according to UC Berkeley Labor Center.
Enrique Lopezlira
Director, Low-Wage Work Program
Annette Bernhardt
Director, Future of Work & Workers Program
Ken Jacobs
Labor Center Chair
Kuochih Huang
Policy Research Specialist
Sarah Thomason
Research and Policy Coordinator
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