In summary
High inflation is triggering an increase in the California minimum wage, while a measure to boost it even more appears headed to the ballot.
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Due to skyrocketing inflation rates, California’s minimum wage for all employers will likely rise to $15.50 an hour starting Jan. 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration said Thursday.
The announcement came during the administration’s preview of an $18.1 billion inflation relief package Newsom will likely discuss in more detail today, when he unveils a revised version of his January budget proposal — and it supercharges a debate already primed to intensify in a key election year.
Also Thursday, supporters of a proposed ballot measure to raise California’s minimum wage to $18 per hour announced having submitted more than 1 million signatures — far more than the about 623,000 required to land it on the November ballot.
- Joe Sanberg, the Los Angeles investor behind the proposed ballot measure: “Tacking 50 cents onto the current minimum wage doesn’t come close to making ends meet for working families. We need a living wage of $18 per hour to keep pace with inflation so that working people and their families can afford food and a place to live without having to take on second and third jobs.”
- California’s current minimum wage is $15 per hour for employers with at least 26 workers and $14 per hour for employers with fewer workers, though that was set to increase to $15 on Jan. 1.
- But an inflation rate above 7% triggers a requirement that the minimum wage also rise at a faster rate — meaning all employers would have to pay $15.50 starting Jan. 1, said Keely Bosler, director of the state Department of Finance. She said the state expects to finalize inflation numbers in July.
While many labor unions cheered the announcement — “Increasing the minimum wage at this time of spiking prices is a just and urgently needed measure,” said David Huerta, president of SEIU California and SEIU-United Services Workers West — some small business owners said it could further impede California’s economic recovery.
- John Kabateck, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business California: “We recognize this is the law but this has the opposite effect on the people they’re trying to help.”
- Ironically, Newsom on Thursday proclaimed May “Small Business Month” in California.
Newsom’s proposed $18.1 billion relief package also includes:
- Checks of as much as $1,500 for hospital and nursing home workers, which could rise to $2,000 with a workplace match.
- $2.7 billion in rent relief for qualified tenants who applied for state or local assistance before March 31.
- $1.4 billion to help Californians pay past-due utility and water bills.
- $304 million to extend soon-to-expire federal subsidies for about 700,000 middle-income residents enrolled in Covered California, the state’s health care marketplace.
- $157 million to waive fees for families attending state-subsidized child care or preschool programs.
- And about $12.7 billion to send as much as $800 to every eligible registered vehicle owner in the state, make public transit free for three months and pause the diesel gas sales tax for a year — essentially the same rebate plan Newsom unveiled in March to lukewarm reception from state lawmakers. (The Legislature’s nonpartisan financial analyst examined the pros and cons of Newsom and lawmakers’ various gas relief plans in a Thursday report.)
Other Capitol updates you should know:
- Lawmakers sent to Newsom’s desk a bill to sidestep a November ballot measure to raise the cap on the amount of money patients can win from medical malpractice lawsuits.
- Meanwhile, business groups tabled until 2024 their proposed ballot measure to repeal a California labor law allowing workers to sue on the state’s behalf.
- And a bill to allow California youths 12 and older to get vaccinated without parental consent squeaked out of the state Senate. It now heads to the Assembly.
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The coronavirus bottom line: As of Monday, California had 8,687,626 confirmed cases (+0.4% from previous day) and 89,957 deaths (+0.1% from previous day), according to state data now updated just twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. CalMatters is also tracking coronavirus hospitalizations by county.
California has administered 75,088,046 vaccine doses, and 75.1% of eligible Californians are fully vaccinated.
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Other stories you should know
1. Mothers protest open-air drug markets
A record 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021, according to new estimates from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — including approximately 11,700 Californians, a whopping 22% increase from the year before. The individual lives behind those stark numbers were highlighted Thursday at the state Capitol, when the group Mothers Against Drug Deaths called on Newsom to declare a state of emergency to crack down on the notorious open-air drug markets in places like San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. The group, which previously erected a billboard in Union Square decrying the city’s drug markets, are now putting up some in Sacramento with the slogan “Welcome to Camp Fentanyl: Open to kids everywhere” plastered across a photo of tent encampments lining a sidewalk.
- Gina McDonald told me her 23-year-old daughter, Sam, is in recovery for the fourth time to treat a heroin and fentanyl addiction after living in a tent in San Francisco and other California cities.
- McDonald, herself a recovering addict, told me she was forced into treatment after experiencing meth-induced psychosis that prompted her to tear open electrical boxes and swallow cell phone SIM cards. She said the treatment saved her life.
- She said many politicians are “afraid” to talk about forcing people into treatment because “they don’t want to be seen as trampling on someone’s civil liberties. … I think a lot of push is for this ‘meet people where they’re at.’ And I get that, you have to meet people where they’re at, but you can’t leave them there. They’re handing them things and saying, ‘Here you go, don’t die, do this safely’ — and walking away. That’s ludicrous. … If you don’t expect more of somebody, they won’t expect more of themselves.”
- Jacqui Berlinn, whose 30-year-old son is also battling a heroin and fentanyl addiction: “I feel like I’m screaming into the wind and that people aren’t listening. … The enabling of drug addiction on the streets in our big cities is incredibly frustrating. … And with drugs that are so incredibly deadly, as are fentanyl, it’s enabling someone and basically just letting them slowly kill themselves.”
2. Big environmental news
A slow environmental news day in California? No such thing. Let’s dive in:
- Desalination plant: After more than 20 years of buildup, the California Coastal Commission on Thursday evening unanimously rejected a project that could very well determine the future of turning seawater into drinking water in drought-stricken California, CalMatters’ Rachel Becker reports. So contentious was Poseidon Water’s proposal to build a $1.4 billion desalination plant in Huntington Beach that Thursday’s public hearing and discussion stretched nearly 12 hours. Still, commission Executive Director Jack Ainsworth said the vote wasn’t necessarily the final word on desalination in California, pointing to more optimistic prospects for the proposed Doheny Desalination Facility in south Orange County’s Dana Point.
- Nuclear power: Amid concerns that California won’t have enough power to keep the lights on this summer, Newsom said he’s considering applying for federal funding to keep the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant open past its scheduled 2025 closure. But that plan comes with numerous technical, financial and logistical hurdles, CalMatters’ Nadia Lopez reports in this story breaking down five things you should know about California’s reliance on nuclear power.
- Toxic cleanup: California’s new agreement with the Boeing Company to clean up Ventura County’s radioactively and chemically polluted Santa Susana Field Laboratory has sparked criticism from some experts and residents who say it significantly reduces cleanup standards for key contaminants, the Los Angeles Daily News reports.
- Wildfires: Southern California Edison told state regulators that it detected “circuit activity occurring close in time” to the Coastal Fire, which ignited Wednesday amid fierce coastal winds and desiccated brush and destroyed at least 20 homes in the wealthy Orange County city of Laguna Niguel. The Newsom administration has secured federal funding to help suppress the fire, which around 550 firefighters were battling as of late Thursday morning. Separately, a 26-year-old firefighter was struck and killed by a falling tree in Calaveras Big Trees State Park while preparing land for a prescribed burn, the Los Angeles Times reports.
- Last but not least: Hot, dry, windy weather is expected across the state this weekend, fueling fears that more wildfires could spring up.
3. Will CA accelerate student housing?
Speaking of the environment, college activists are pushing state lawmakers to pass a bill to fast-track UC, CSU and community college housing developments by getting rid of a secondary review currently required under California’s marquee environmental protection law, Ryan Loyola reports for CalMatters’ College Journalism Network. But one big question remains: Even if the bill passes, will it actually make a difference?
- State Sen. Bob Wieckowski, a Fremont Democrat: “I don’t want to be here in seven years after this bill expires and have no student housing because the UCs and CSUs haven’t gotten their act together on doing it.”
In other higher-education news, here’s a dispatch from Colleen Murphy, team lead for CalMatters’ College Journalism Network: Students on Wednesday filed a class-action lawsuit against Mills College, an all-women’s university in Oakland, arguing it misled them about a merger with Northeastern University. According to the lawsuit, the merger has forced some Mills students to either change majors or transfer, “resulting in delayed graduation dates and additional expenses.”
- Jenny Varner, one of the lawsuit’s lead plaintiffs who transferred out of Mills in response to the merger, previously told the CalMatters College Journalism Network that it “just wouldn’t be Mills anymore.”
- The merger is set to be made final next month. More such deals are likely, particularly among private colleges facing financial pressure.
- Mills said in a Thursday statement that it’s working with Northeastern to “mitigate any issues” students may encounter as a result of the merger and emphasized that current students won’t pay more to complete their degrees, even if extra time is required. The university also said it will help students craft plans to complete coursework.
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CalMatters commentary
Affordable housing production needs less stick and more carrot: To meet California’s dire housing needs, policymakers must put less emphasis on mandates and instead harness the power of incentives, argues Jason Ward, associate director of the RAND Center on Housing and Homelessness in Los Angeles.
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Other things worth your time
Joe Buscaino withdraws from L.A. mayor’s race, endorses Rick Caruso. // LAist
Opinion: Six ways Democrats need to start talking — and thinking — about crime. // San Francisco Chronicle
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State Supreme Court rejects a challenge by landlords to S.F. eviction protection law. // San Francisco Chronicle
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Four years among the San Francisco NIMBYS. // The Atlantic
How the California Public Utilities Commission undermines the Public Records Act. // San Francisco Public Press
Oil companies price gouging in California, Consumer Watchdog says. // ABC 10
California unlikely to fix massive wage-theft claim backlog anytime soon. // KQED
Foster Farms plant in Merced County asked Trump to help evade COVID rules. // Sacramento Bee
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Hayward superintendent picked to lead S.F. public schools. // San Francisco Standard
Wildfires, smoke, heat waves endanger West’s summer camps. // Bloomberg
See you Monday.
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