Several California cities, including San Diego, West Hollywood and Los Angeles began offering a higher minimum wage than the state as of Jan. 1, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center. These cities have a minimum wage above $17 per hour.

The agreement also comes as the Republican-led Congress weighs Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which could include hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid. Federal cuts could cost the state between $10 billion and $20 billion, according to a UC Berkeley analysis.

And in more bad news, California stands to lose up to 217,000 jobs on account of Medi-Cal cuts, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

A new report from the UC Berkeley Labor Center estimates California could lose between 109,000 to 217,000 jobs if U.S. leaders make anticipated cuts to Medicaid health insurance for very-low income people.

“A union’s strength is its membership,” Jacobs said in an email. “If workers want to improve wages and working conditions, their best option is to stay in the union and get involved with the next contract fight.”

“If your objective is to make federal programs not function, then this is a way to meet that objective,” Ken Jacobs said.

Home care workers who provide assistance to elderly and disabled Californians could see more wage equality, according to a recent labor report, by shifting contract negotiations to the state level instead of bargaining individually with California’s 56 individual counties.

The following California cities also offer a higher minimum wage than the state, as of Jan. 1, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Lopezlira said the real world is more complicated than economic theory. Therefore, it’s difficult to dissuade voters from the notion that prices are directly tied to increases to the minimum wage.

Anecdotal observations are confirmed by researchers in the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley: “Over half of all low wage workers are over the age of 30, and the low wage workforce is older than it was a generation ago. The share of the workforce 55 years or older doubled (to 11.9%) from 2000 to 2022.”

In a February 2024 report, researchers at the UC Berkeley Labor Center estimated that the wage increase would affect 322,000 workers who are earning below the minimum and 76,000 workers earning at or slightly more than the minimum whose employers will raise their wages to maintain their pay premiums.

The declining number of retirements is driven by two primary forces, said Nari Rhee. There are fewer older workers in the state’s workforce given a large number of Baby Boomers have already retired from the state. The youngest in that generation are 60 years old. The other factor can be attributed to changes California made over a decade ago that increased the age when public employees received pension benefits

“Yes, strikes are effective,” said Ken Jacobs.

Many California voters thought they were improving the lot of drivers by passing Prop. 22. They were mistaken and possibly misled.

Why did fewer people retire last year? One likely explanation is people who would’ve retired in 2023 instead took early retirement during the height of the pandemic, said Nari Rhee.

“Raising the health care minimum wage to $25 an hour would help reduce these working families’ need to rely on safety net programs, thereby reducing state Medi-Cal spending as many affected workers become eligible for federally subsidized insurance through Covered California,” Laurel Lucia.

Ever since the Janus decision, it’s not uncommon to see public employee unions ramp up membership drives before contract negotiations begin, said Ken Jacobs of the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

If SB 525 doesn’t get the governor’s approval, the wage terms in the Kaiser agreement would likely put pressure on on other big health systems to raise pay for the industry’s lowest-paid workers, said Laurel Lucia, director of the health care program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center said that about a half-million health care workers around the state were struggling to survive on their wages, even as they showed up to care for patients amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

McKinnor is also carrying a bill, AB 1677, that would commission the UC Berkeley Labor Center to conduct a salary study of the scientists’ bargaining unit.

“The low wages paid to health care support workers, direct care workers, and health care service workers in California means they struggle to meet their basic needs; these low wages also significantly contribute to the difficulty in maintaining adequate health care staffing across the state,” wrote labor center researchers Enrique Lopezlira and Ken Jacobs.

A recent study commissioned by Local 1000 and conducted by the UC Berkeley Labor Center showed many members were struggling financially, particularly women, Black and Latino employees.

A study released in March, which was commissioned by Local 1000 and conducted by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, found that many Local 1000 members were struggling financially, particularly women, Black and Latino employees.

A study released in March, which was commissioned by the union and conducted by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, found that many Local 1000 members were struggling financially, particularly women, Black and Latino employees. The study found that nearly 70% of the union’s members fail to earn a wage high enough to support themselves and at least one child.

A bill from Assemblywoman Tina McKinnor, D-Inglewood, would commission the UC Berkeley Labor Center to conduct an independent study of the salary structure within the scientists’ bargaining unit.