Enrique Lopezlira, a labor economist at UC Berkeley, said the low-visibility campaign for Proposition 32, including few advertisements, could be playing a role in the results, particularly in an election with 10 state propositions on the ballot.
About 350,000 health care employees, most of them people of color and women, are projected to see an annual average increase of $6,400 in the first year of the policy, according to an analysis by the UC Berkeley Labor Center. In earlier estimates, the labor center calculated up to 426,000 people would be impacted, but that figure included workers at skilled nursing facilities who are currently not covered by the law, according to Laurel Lucia, who directs the center’s health care program.
Medi-Cal expanded to include all qualifying adults regardless of immigration status in January 2024. This year’s expansion was the final phase of an eight-year effort to extend Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants, first to children and pregnant women, then to children under 19, to young adults under 26, and to older adults over 50, as part of the state’s initiative to expand health care access to all Californians. The UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates that close to one million undocumented Californians will have gained access to Medi-Cal through this expansion.
Wages have been growing slower than inflation, said Ken Jacobs, co-chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor, meaning hotel workers’ pay has less buying power than it did previously.
Brad Hirn said because rent prices increased at record rates before and during the pandemic, softening rents should not be viewed as a move toward affordability.
Most of California’s fast-food employees are adult women of color who previously made close to $16 an hour, the state’s general minimum wage, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
With Trump-era corporate tax cuts set to end in 2025, the nation’s next leaders will likely issue high-stakes decisions such as how much to invest in working people and students versus benefits for corporations and wealthy Americans, Jacobs said.
Brad Hirn, who is not a resident of the Village, said that UAW 4811 is “overall concerned about reducing rent burden for students and workers due to these new fees,” and that he is “supporting the residents in their efforts” with his background in tenant and labor union organizing.
About 426,000 people statewide — or about 36% of the health care workforce — will benefit from the minimum wage hike, said Laurel Lucia, who directs the health care program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
The majority of California’s roughly half a million fast food workers are women of color, most of whom previously made close to the state’s $16 an hour minimum wage, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
Enrique Lopezlira discusses our new report, “California Union Membership and Coverage: 2023 Chartbook.”
Virginia Parks discusses the Labor Center report “Fossil Fuel Layoff,” which she co-authored.
“Support for unions is the highest that we’ve seen since the mid-1960s in the United States,” said Ken Jacobs, who chairs the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “There’s interest among large numbers of workers in joining unions. And we see support across all age groups and Democrats, Republicans, independents.”
The financial picture can be remarkably different for the small-business owners who own the chains’ franchise stores, which represent the vast majority of fast-food restaurants, said Ken Jacobs, who chairs the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
About 3.2 million people in the state of nearly 40 million are projected to not have health insurance next year, according to the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Roughly 1.5 million are unauthorized immigrants, making them the largest uninsured group in the state.
But more than 1.3 million undocumented Californians are projected to lack health insurance next year, remaining the largest uninsured group in the state, according to a report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
A study from the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that nearly half of immigrant workers in California are employed in essential jobs.
Jacobs said similar increases in cities such as San Francisco “have led to measurable, strong increases in workers’ pay, [and] we are not seeing effects on employment overall.”
Much of gig work is spent waiting for a job in the app. UC Berkeley’s Labor Center did a study where they tried to take time between rides into account, along with wear and tear on the vehicle. Adding those factors in the mix, the study found the wage guarantee drops to just $5.64 an hour.
