Over the summer, the cities of Los Angeles, Downey, Long Beach and Monterey Park decided that certain workers in select private healthcare facilities should be paid at least $25 an hour starting this month.
Why $25 an hour? Why only certain workers? Because that’s what the advocates asked for. What effect might across-the-board raises have on the healthcare system? Nobody knows. The wage increases were proposed, considered and enacted in a matter of weeks, without any meaningful analysis of the potential impacts.
This is sloppy policymaking. There are occasions when lawmakers intervene to set employee compensation — the minimum wage is one example, as are prevailing wages paid to construction workers on government-aided projects. But governments shouldn’t set pay willy-nilly just for some workers in some facilities, and they most definitely shouldn’t do it without considering or debating the repercussions.
The wage hikes were championed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare West, a politically influential union that represents medical and nursing assistants, technicians, maintenance specialists, food services workers, among other healthcare staff. The union has argued that the pay hike is necessary because front-line healthcare workers are paid too little and are burned out by the pandemic and leaving the industry.
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