The interactive data explorer provides comprehensive data on the state’s low-wage workforce, including demographics, job characteristics, industries, occupations, use of public assistance programs, and geography. It also provides users with graphics, tables, research summaries, interactive visualizations, and downloadable data.

This report documents the types of workplace management technologies being adopted by employers in California, the impacts on workers, and policy principles being developed by unions and other worker advocates.

The evidence presented in this report makes clear that the risks of unchecked bossware are not merely speculative, but already reshaping working conditions, undercutting established labor protections, and shifting power toward employers—often without workers’ knowledge or consent.

Manufacturing is still an important part of the Bay Area economy, despite a long-term decline in manufacturing employment across much of the US. These jobs once provided a pathway to decent wages and financial stability for blue-collar workers, but a new report finds that this is no longer the case.

An overview of job quality and equity in existing manufacturing employment in the Bay Area, identifying challenges and strategies for cultivating a high-road manufacturing sector.

A report from the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, including research from the UC Berkeley Labor Center. This edition of the “State of the Unions” report offers readers insight into how California unions are faring in the face of an unfriendly federal administration, a militarized deportation campaign, and a continuing cost-of-living crisis.

This page provides the estimated number and percentage of residents enrolled in Covered California by county, congressional district, state senate district, and state assembly district as of March 2026.

These maps provide the estimated number and percentage of residents enrolled in Medi-Cal by county, congressional district, state senate district, and state assembly district as of April 2026.

Updated with 2025 data. Use the data and resources on this page to learn more about union density in California.

Across the country, cities and counties have become laboratories of policy innovation on labor standards. Before 2012, only five localities had minimum wage laws; currently, 66 counties and cities do. To help inform policymakers and other stakeholders, the UC Berkeley Labor Center is maintaining an up-to-date inventory of these laws, with details on wage levels, scheduled increases, and other law details, as well as links to the ordinances.

This report examines the security guard workforce across the country—who these workers are, what they earn, the conditions under which they work, and the standards that govern the industry—and argues that improving job quality in security is a matter both of economic justice and of public safety.

Archive tables of California city and county minimum wage rates.

As a result of federal and state policy decisions made in 2025, we project that 4.6 million Californians under age 65 will be uninsured by 2030—an increase of 2.2 million—and the uninsured rate will nearly double to 14.7%.

Written response to the California Privacy Protection Agency’s April 20, 2026 invitation for preliminary comment on Notices & Disclosure and Employee Data as regulated by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Comments submitted by the California Federation of Labor Unions, California Nurses Association, SEIU California, Tech Equity, and the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

This brief examines the disproportionately low rates of job-based health coverage for low-wage California workers, the costs to the state and nation, and possible policy options, drawing on lessons from other states.

This blog post explains Social Security’s vital importance to millions of Californians, underscores its role as a key driver of the state economy, and highlights broad bipartisan support for sensible proposals to strengthen the system’s finances and enhance benefits for vulnerable groups.

This factsheet highlights the characteristics of the private sector security guard workforce in California, the Los Angeles MSA, and the five-county Bay Area, and highlights the need to improve labor conditions in the industry.

Student Iris De Leon provides a firsthand account of this year’s Solidarity Spring, a three-day spring break program during which 50 undergraduates met with workers, tenants, artists, and organizers in the Bay Area to engage in a wide range of activities and learn what solidarity means.

This factsheet describes the characteristics of the private sector security guard workforce in Seattle and the state of Washington, highlighting the need to improve labor conditions in the industry.