Low-Wage Work
Enrique Lopezlira is the director of the Low-Wage Work program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. He is a labor economist, directing and conducting research on how policies affect working families, with a particular focus on how these policies impact racial and gender equity.
Dr. Lopezlira previously served as senior policy advisor for economic and employment policy at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), one of the largest Latinx civil rights organizations in the nation. He also served as deputy director for policy and research at Western Progress, a think tank advancing progressive policies and change in the eight states of the Rocky Mountain West.
He also brings experiences in advising various government agencies and testifying at the state and federal levels. He is often asked for his economic insights and analysis by English and Spanish media; he has appeared on CNN, CNN en Español, and Univision, and has been covered in Al Jazeera, Politico, and the Washington Post.
Dr. Lopezlira holds a doctorate in economics from Howard University. He also holds a master’s degree in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from Arizona State University.
Chartbook comparing California union membership and coverage from 2001-2002 and 2021-2022. Findings show that at least half of all of California’s 2.5 million union members are women and that the majority of all union workers are people of color. By contrast, 20 years ago the typical union member in California was a white man.
In this brief we estimate the new costs to the state resulting from SB 525 as well as the savings it would generate through reductions in safety net program enrollment of affected workers and their family members.
Passage of AB 2257 has caused only minor changes in coverage of the ABC test under AB 5.
This report examines the state of work in the East Bay prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that even before the pandemic, when the economy was strong by conventional economic metrics and had recovered from the Great Recession, many East Bay workers were earning low wages, housing cost-burdened, and struggling to make ends meet, with workers of color in particular making wages too low to support themselves and their families.
This report shows that the proposed California Senate Bill No. 525 (SB 525), which would establish a new $25 per hour minimum wage for health care employees, has the potential to substantially improve conditions for low-wage health care workers that provide essential services to the state, ameliorate staffing shortages in the industry, and improve quality of care.
Enrique Lopezlira told AP News that in California, most fast food workers are over 18 and the main providers for their families. And a study from the University’s Labor Center found that a little more than three-fourths of health care workers in California are women, and 76% are workers of color.
In California, most fast food workers are over 18 and the main providers for their family, according to Enrique Lopezlira, director of the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center’s Low Wage Work Program. Just over 75% of health care workers in California are women, and 76% are workers of color, according to a study published earlier this year by the UC Berkely Labor Center.
The smaller the union, the more likely workers will vote to dissolve it, says labor economist Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work program at the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center.
Enrique Lopezlira discusses our new report, “California Union Membership and Coverage: 2023 Chartbook.”
Dr. Enrique Lopezlira, a labor economist and the director of the low-wage work program at UC Berkeley, joined “Your Morning” to discuss recent strikes.
Enrique Lopezlira, a labor economist and director of the low-wage work program at UC Berkeley’s Labor Center, said housing prices will likely become more central to unions’ concerns as service workers are forced to live farther away from their place of employment.
Although the wages for seasonal workers have increased in the past few years, recent data shows that wage growth has slowed and hiring has decreased this year compared to last year, Lopezlira added.
A UC Berkeley Labor Center Low-Wage Work Program report assessed how proposed CA Senate Bill No. 525, or SB 525, would affect healthcare workers, patients and the healthcare industry overall.
What the conversation around SB 525 really underscores is just how many of California’s health care workers aren’t making enough to get by.
The report found “the state does not provide living wages to a significant portion of its workforce. This has resulted in many of the State of California’s working families facing enormous challenges including food insecurity and an untenable rent burden.”
