OPINION AND COMMENTARY
Editorials and other Opinion content offer perspectives on issues important to our community and are independent from the work of our newsroom reporters.
At our last Law and Legislation Committee meeting, I heard testimonies from local health care workers. These individuals — who survived the COVID pandemic and continue to work full time to take care of us and our loved ones — spoke about having to sleep in their cars, taking on second jobs and struggling with whether to remain in health care because they simply don’t make enough money to justify doing the work they love.
Some of Sacramento’s essential health care workers are earning as little as $15.50 an hour — that’s roughly $32,000 for a full-time job — California’s minimum wage. Here in Sacramento, that means they would be paying around 75% of their salary to afford a market-rate, one-bedroom apartment.
Opinion
Low pay, overwhelming workloads and risky working conditions are making it hard to retain our current health care workforce and to recruit new employees into the health care industry. People who work hard every day to help others should be able to pay rent, buy groceries and provide for their families.
These are our constituents, neighbors and caregivers. Health care workers who are unable to make ends meet while working full-time is bad policy for our community.
This is why I’m leading the effort for the City of Sacramento to pass a Health care Worker Minimum Wage Ordinance which...
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