California health workers receive raises with new minimum wage law

Some of California’s lowest-paid health care workers get a raise Wednesday under a state law to gradually increase their pay to at least $25 an hour.

Staff at rural and independent health centers will start earning a minimum of $18 an hour, while others at hospitals with at least 10,000 full-time employees will start earning at least $23 an hour this week. The law will raise workers’ wages over the next decade, with some reaching $25 an hour sooner than others.

The law indicates that some 350,000 workers will have to earn more starting Wednesday, according to the Employment Center of the University of California, Berkeley campus.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law last year and workers were scheduled to receive raises in June. Legislators and the governor agreed this year to delay its application to close a budget hole of about $46.8 billion.

Carmela Coyle, president and CEO of the California Hospital Association, said last year that the legislation will support workers and protect access to health care.

The measure, he said, “strikes the right balance between significantly improving wages while protecting jobs and care in community hospitals across the space,” he said in a statement.

The minimum wage for most workers in California is $16 an hour. Voters will decide in November whether to gradually raise that figure to $18 an hour by 2026, which would be the highest state minimum wage in the United States. Fast food workers in California now have to be paid at least $20 an hour, under a law Newsom signed last year.

Some healthcare firms expressed concerns last year, when the rule was passed, that it would be a financial burden on hospitals as they tried to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The law could cause companies to reduce hours and the number of employees, according to critics.

Many hospitals in the state have already begun implementing wage increases according to the law’s original schedule, said Sarah Bridge, vice president of advocacy and strategy for the California Association of Health Districts.

“It obviously creates financial pressures that weren’t there before,” Bridge said of the law. “But all of our members are willing and ready to make the change.”

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