Ken Jacobs

SB 525 would establish a new minimum wage of $25 per hour for health care employees.

California and numerous cities in the Bay Area saw their minimum wages increase as of Jan. 1, providing low-income workers with a boost to their earnings. 

UC President Michael Drake extended the use of Emergency Paid Sick Leave to all UC employees, effective Oct. 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022.

A study released Thursday by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education found that $413 million in additional funding could be in California’s Unemployment Insurance Fund if Lyft and Uber classified their drivers as employees from 2014 to 2019.

A 2018 study co-authored by Anna Godøy, research economist at the UC Berkeley Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics, found that when wages increase, there is little to no impact on job loss or growth.

A study conducted by UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education associate Ian Perry found that California’s progressive public policies over a period of six years have not negatively affected state employment rates or the economy.

The California Legislature approved Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed $15 per hour minimum wage Thursday, echoing wage-increase initiatives already taken by the University of California and the city of Berkeley.

Earlier this month, campus researchers published a study examining the possible effects of increasing the minimum wage in New York to $15 over the next five years.

The UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education released a research brief this month that presents the high public costs that low wages bring, suggesting higher wages and increases in employer-provided health insurance as a way of lowering these costs.