Low-Wage Work

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California Workers' Rights: A Manual of Job Rights, Protections and Remedies

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Aida Farmand, Tynan Challenor, Savannah Hunter, Enrique Lopezliraand Ken Jacobs

State workers struggle to make ends meet throughout California; Women, Black, and Latino workers are disproportionately affected

The California state government has close to a quarter of a million employees, almost half of whom are women and almost two-thirds of whom are workers of color. But across occupations and throughout the state, many state workers earn well below what is needed to attain a decent standard of living in California.

Laurel Lucia

Many California family child care providers will now be better able to afford health care

This blog post outlines the assistance offered by the recently-established Child Care Providers United California Workers Health Care Fund, summarizes recent findings from a David Binder Research/ California Health Care Foundation survey that underscore the need for this new health care investment for family child care providers, and discusses how the program will improve affordability for providers and benefit California as a whole.

Inventory of US City and County Minimum Wage Ordinances

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, 56 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.

RELEASE: California’s Labor Market Two Years Into the Pandemic – 2022 Chartbook

Today, the UC Berkeley Labor Center released an update to its data tool, “California’s Labor Market Two Years into the Pandemic: 2022 Chartbook.” The chartbook provides researchers, policymakers, journalists, and the public with an in-depth look at the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers and the labor market in California based on the most recently available data.

Enrique Lopezlira, Kuochih Huang, , Ken Jacobs, Sarah Thomasonand Annette Bernhardt

California’s Labor Market in the Time of COVID-19

This data tool tracks the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on workers in California, and how the state is recovering from these effects. The pandemic left millions of Californians out of work, and while the economy has begun to recover in recent months, some workers continue to struggle. This resource will be updated periodically, as new data becomes available, to allow users to monitor the progress of labor markets in the state. Last updated May 18, 2022.

Lance Compa

Failure to Deliver: Assessing Amazon’s Freedom of Association Policy under International Labor Standards

Amazon recently announced a new policy on freedom of association under international standards, saying it would comply with International Labor Organization and United Nations principles on union organizing and collective bargaining. This assessment shows that Amazon’s freedom of association policy, on its face, is non-compliant with international labor standards, and Amazon management’s conduct before and after issuing the policy continues to violate international standards.

Low-Wage Work in California Data Explorer

The Low-Wage Work in California Data Explorer provides users with graphics, tables, research summaries, interactive visualizations, and downloadable data. Use this site to explore a wide range of data on California’s low-wage workers: numbers of workers, demographics, job quality, occupations, industries, economic security indicators, geography, and more.

Ken Jacobs, Kuochih Huang, Jenifer MacGillvaryand Enrique Lopezlira

The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Arizona Construction Industry

In this research brief we provide estimates of safety net use among families of construction workers in Arizona. We find that 45% of families of construction workers in Arizona are enrolled in one or more safety net programs at a cost to the state and the federal government of over $700 million per year. By comparison, among all Arizona workers, 32% have a family member enrolled in one or more safety net programs. Over one-third (36%) of construction workers lack health insurance, almost three times the rate for all workers in Arizona (13%).