If adopted, the fair share bill is estimated to raise as much as $8 billion annually and the billionaire’s tax is estimated to raise $20 billion each year over its five-year span, Laurel Lucia, MPP, deputy executive director of programs at the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center, told The Nation’s Health.
The choice of California to apply work requirements to state-funded Medi-Cal recipients “doesn’t really live up to the rhetoric from state officials about trying to implement H.R.1 in the least harmful way possible,” Miranda Dietz said.
If Rodney Strong workers file a petition, the next move would be up to the NLRB, which would decide whether and when to schedule a secret-ballot election. That timeline is not always quick. An analysis from the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that while the agency reports a median of 39 days from petition to election, cases that require hearings last far longer, with an average of about 124 days before a vote.
Most of the increase in household income over the past several decades has come from women’s earnings and more hours worked, not from hourly wage growth, said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
At least 180 state bills have been introduced this year to regulate AI use in workplaces or address technology-related job losses, according to the University of California at Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
Miranda Dietz, director of the Health Care Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, said close to 3 million Californians will lose healthcare over the next two years as a result of state and federal changes. “The need for health insurance and healthcare is not going anywhere,” Dietz said.
A 2024 UC Berkeley Labor Center study of drivers in five large U.S. metro areas found that after paying for gas, vehicle maintenance and all hours spent driving — including time driving without a passenger — rideshare drivers’ median take-home pay without tips was less than $6 per hour.
“There’s this fine calibration required where employers need the workers for the projects, they can’t start training the workers when they need them,” Betony Jones said. “But workers can’t train and then wait around.”
The number of Californians without health insurance could nearly double by 2030, according to a new report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.
The stakes are incredibly high. The UC Berkeley Labor Center has estimated that as many as 3 million Californians are at risk of losing Medi-Cal coverage by 2028 as a result of policy changes and funding cuts to the program under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
California’s ranks of uninsured residents could nearly double in the next four years — to nearly 4.6 million people — because of deep federal cuts to Medicaid and dramatic changes in federal and state policy, according to a new report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
New estimates by the UC Berkeley Labor Center project that 2.2 million more Californians will go without health insurance by 2030 because of Trump’s spending law and recent state actions.
Medi-Cal, the state’s version of the federal Medicaid program, enrolls more than 14 million Californians. According to data from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the UC Berkeley Labor Center, about 210,000 recipients in San Diego County could lose their health care coverage if the changes are adopted.
More than 3.8 million L.A. County residents, or 39% of the population, were enrolled in Medi-Cal at the start of this year. Because of federal cuts and changes, about 1.1 million of them could lose that coverage by 2028, according to an analysis by the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center.
For those on Medi-Cal, the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center estimates nearly 3 million fewer Californians will have Medi-Cal in 2028 due to the various rule changes, with 129,000 losing benefits in Santa Clara County. About 460,000 county residents were enrolled in Medi-Cal last October, the latest data available.
The Labor Center at UC Berkeley came out with an estimate putting the number of uninsured Californians skyrocketing to 4.6 million by 2030 and a nearly doubling of the uninsured rate.
“Low wages drive high turnover and turnover is a safety problem,” Enrique Lopezlira said. “A less experienced workforce is less familiar with security and safety procedures.”
“Over the decades, Medi-Cal has really undergone a significant transformation. It’s shifted from a program that primarily served the disabled and indigent and elderly folks to one that largely supports folks that work in low-wage industries,” Tia Orr, the executive director of SEIU California, said.
“We have a whole database at the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center of every single contract we bargained on this issue, and it does show success. We know we’ve saved jobs,” Lorena Gonzales said.
UC Berkeley researchers, studying “the public cost of low-wage work,” have found that, when employers fail to pay sufficient wages to survive in California, workers are relying on housing assistance, Medi-Cal and CalFresh, formerly known as food stamps.
A new UC Berkeley Labor Center report finds that while East Bay workers experienced real wage growth (adjusted for inflation) during the recovery from the COVID-19 recession, many still lived at or “near” poverty, struggling to make ends meet.
A report from the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) and the UC Berkeley Labor Center that provides a snapshot of the California labor movement. It analyzes the most recent publicly available data on union density, member demographics, and labor organizing activity in California and the nation, and features case studies highlighting victories for workers in the fast-food, warehousing, and agriculture industries.
A new case study released by the UC Berkeley Labor Center looks at the lessons for current elected officials, unions, and community groups from redeveloping the Oakland Army base 25 years ago.
New research from the UC Berkeley Labor Center and UCLA Center for Health Policy Research finds that if Congress does not extend the expanded subsidies implemented under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, some 2.4 million Californians in the individual market—most of whom are enrolled in Covered California—would face higher health insurance premiums.
A first-of-its-kind analysis of app passenger and delivery drivers’ wages in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle metropolitan areas finds that most gig drivers in these cities make significantly less than minimum wage when all work time, gas, and vehicle wear and tear are factored in.
A predicted boom in warehouse automation did not materialize, according to this new report.
Monterey County has some of the highest hospital costs in the state. To better understand why health care costs are so high in this Central Coast county, there is an urgent need to collect and analyze data that can help point to causes and solutions to the problem.
A new report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center finds that defined benefit pensions—especially public pensions—are critical to providing adequate retirement income for California seniors, especially for women, Black, and Latino retirees, and those without a four-year college degree.
This report provides the first in-depth look at the labor market for agricultural truck drivers in California and the first study of this workforce anywhere in the U.S. in almost 30 years. It finds that, while there is not a shortage of people interested in truck driving, the industry faces challenges with retaining drivers, with turnover being especially high for long-haul drivers.
A study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center finds that union members are more likely to be women and people of color than 20 years ago.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks applications for a Research & Policy Associate in the Low-Wage Work Team.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks applications for the position of Policy Researcher/Senior Policy Researcher in its Green Economy Program
Security guards are essential workers who ensure public safety in buildings, hospitals, and transportation hubs—but their compensation and working conditions do not reflect their important role. Our series of briefs examines wages, job quality, and workforce characteristics in the private security industry across multiple geographies.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks applications for the position of Technology and Work Program Director.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks a Policy Researcher / Senior Policy Researcher for its Health Care Program.
Join us in 2026! Announcing the dates of our new year of Leadership Development courses: Power and Participation in Negotiations, Skills to Win, our all new training Power Structure Analysis, and Lead Organizer Training!
Miranda Dietz, who has been the Labor Center’s interim Health Care Program director since July, has taken over as the permanent lead of the program.
With excitement and gratitude, we announce the just-established Low-Wage Workforce of Color Endowment, spearheaded by former Labor Center Chair Katie Quan, to ensure ongoing support for research and capacity building for years to come.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center seeks a Grants and Contracts Administrator.
The Labor Center is deeply saddened by the passing of our long-time colleague and friend, Kent Wong, project director for labor and community partnerships and former director of our sister labor center at UCLA for more than 30 years.
The Skills to Win Workshop is a six-week series for rank and file members and staff of unions, worker associations, worker centers, and community organizations that are embarking on, or in the midst of, organizing campaigns.
PERB, the Public Employment Relations Board, turns 50 this year! Join us September 19 for a half-day conference celebrating public workers, their unions, and PERB!
This four-day, in-person workshop is offered to lead organizers in labor unions and community-based organizations who want to strengthen their skills in effectively managing their teams to win campaigns. Ofrecemos esta capacitación de 4 dias en persona para organizadores principales en uniones y organizaciones comunitarias quienes quieren fortalecer sus habilidades de dirigir sus equipos para ganar campañas.
