The number of uninsured Californians under 65 is projected to nearly double, from 2.4 million to 4.6 million by 2030, according to a May analysis by the UC Berkeley Labor Center. The projection reflects federal and state changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplaces that are now taking effect.

“Our rideshare chapter highlights a different but related development that I think is especially significant: workers who have traditionally been excluded from conventional collective bargaining structures are developing new pathways to worker voice,” said a program director at the UC Berkeley Labor Center, Enrique Lopezlira, in an email.

Today, some 81,000 security officers work in New York City. Our work is not done. According to a UC Berkeley Labor Center report, the NYC security industry suffers from a 77% turnover rate and 37.8% of NYC security officers lack employer-provided health insurance.

Eighty-three California hospitals are at risk of closing, and up to 145,000 health care workers could be laid off, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Ninety percent of the Prop 40 revenue will backfill these health care cuts, with the balance dedicated to public education.

“This is an essential workforce that’s being asked to do more and more,” said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the UC Berkeley Center’s Low-Wage Work Program. “Yet the pay, training and other labor standards of the job have not kept up.”

“This is an essential workforce that’s being asked to do more and more,” said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the UC Berkeley Center’s Low-Wage Work Program. “Yet the pay, training and other labor standards of the job have not kept up.”

Unions have been a forceful voice for controlling health spending because these costs, they argue, eat into potential wage increases. That’s backed up by UC Berkeley Labor Center research, which shows that when employers spend more on premiums, they spend less on raises.

California had about 2.4 mn uninsured residents under age 65 before the latest policy changes. By 2030, the figure is projected to reach 4.6 mn, according to a May analysis from the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center.

A report from University of California, Berkeley Labor Center noted that the annual turnover in the security industry reached 89 percent in 2024—far above the 66 percent private-sector average—and has exceeded it every year for a decade, peaking near 99 percent in 2022. This is primarily driven by low wages and a lack of benefits while maintaining a job with a demanding workload.

Should Becerra cruise to victory in November, as polling suggests, he will face what may be the steepest decline in health insurance coverage in a generation, one that will land especially hard in his home state.

Unions have little reach in either field: LPPI cites a UCLA/UC Berkeley labor analysis showing construction workers were unionized at 18% in 2024 and retail workers at just 8% — a gap researchers say weakens workers’ ability to bargain even as these jobs keep growing.

The UC Berkeley Labor Center and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research predict that California’s uninsured rate will nearly double by 2030, nearing 15%. The addition of 2.2 million people to the ranks of the uninsured will erode much of the progress the state has made toward universal coverage, the UC researchers wrote in a May report.

The UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates that reductions of $10B–$20B in annual federal Medi-Cal funding could translate into 109,000–217,000 jobs lost across California.

Researchers Annette Bernhardt and Lisa Kresge wrote in the report that ADS technology, which commonly employs AI, can be used in workplaces to give workers directions about their job tasks, predict workers’ future behavior and rank workers.

A national report the center published in July found that private security guards suffer on-the-job fatal injury rates twice as high as the national workplace average, despite remaining among the lower-paid occupations in the U.S. economy.

The UC Berkeley Labor Center projected that due to federal and state policies adopted in 2025, nearly 5 million Californians under age 65 will be uninsured by 2030, nearly doubling the state’s uninsured rate among those under 65 to 14.7%.

Negotiations certainly could become complicated. According to a 2024 study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, rideshare drivers in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area averaged $7.12 an hour in median net earnings before tips.

A UC Berkeley Labor Center report found annual turnover in investigation and security services reached 89 percent in 2024, against 66 percent across the private sector, a gap that has held every year for a decade and peaked near 99 percent in 2022.

Recent analysis by the UC Berkeley Labor Center and UCLA Center for Health Policy Research projected California’s health uninsured rate could double to 15% by 2030.

Nearly 130,000 county residents are projected to lose their Medi-Cal coverage due to these cuts by 2028, and nearly 3 million people statewide could lose coverage, according to the Labor Center at University of California, Berkeley.