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.
Who is paid low wages in California? The UC Berkeley Labor Center just updated its Low-Wage Work in California Data Explorer, which provides a wide range of data on the state’s 5.6 million workers who are paid low wages.
This research note evaluates the impact of PLAs on the costs of affordable housing construction projects under Proposition HHH in Los Angeles, making it a critical case study given the city’s efforts to address homelessness.
This brief analyzes the impact SB 525 is projected to have on workers, patients, and the state budget in the first year of the policy. It is an update of our June 2023 and April 2023 briefs, both of which analyzed preliminary versions of the bill.
Data and methods appendix to the brief “California health care minimum wage: New estimates for impacts on workers, patients, and the state budget.”
We find that job vacancies in local government appear to be a widespread and significant problem for the public sector affecting a wide range of occupations across wage levels and educational requirements. We offer suggested policy solutions raised by subject matter experts and other reports and analyses on job vacancy challenges in local government.
In December, Enrique Lopezlire, director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center, told the supervisors that violations disproportionately affect low-wage workers, women, people of color and immigrants.
“It’s going to help people, but it’s not going to have the same impact that it would have had when it was originally proposed,” Lopezlira said.
“Anything that enhances (workers’) ability to organize and lower the power imbalance that now exists will ultimately result in better working conditions, including wages,” said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
“Even though there’s been some wage gains at the bottom, the reality is that low-wage workers are still not earning a living wage,” said Lopezlira.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center released an update to the Low-Wage Work Data Explorer for 2024, which includes demographics, occupations, industries, geography and job quality, depicting low-wage workers for researchers and policymakers.
Higher wages will increase expenses for some fast-food chains, but “they don’t have to raise prices,” Lopezlira said. “They’re making lots of revenue” — profits of 6% or more for Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, and nearly 10% for McDonald’s.
“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.
Enrique Lopezlire, director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center, presented research documenting that violations disproportionately affect low-wage workers, women, people of color and immigrants.
During the board meeting, Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work program at the University of California at Berkeley Labor Center, commented that in 2015, half a million California workers experienced minimum wage violations.
Most fast food workers 18 and older are the main providers for their families, according to Enrique Lopezlira, director of the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center’s Low Wage Work Program.
