9 ways Joe Biden and Kamala Harris aim to make the US like California
With Democrats holding all the political power in California for nearly the last decade, the Golden State has evolved into a laboratory of big blue ideas. Put a price on carbon? We’ve done it. Ban assault weapons? We’ve done that too. Gun control, minimum wage hikes and two years of free community college are also realities here.
Democratic candidates for president — with rare exceptions — don’t typically point to California as a model, at least not explicitly. But many of the major policies that former Vice President Joe Biden is proposing are already in place here to some degree. Below are some key ways Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris want to make the United States more like California, and a bit about what the state’s policy experiments reveal so far.
CalMatters reporters Felicia Mello and Judy Lin contributed to this report.
Boost the minimum wage to $15 per hour
What Biden and Harris are proposing:
Back in 2016, doubling the national minimum wage was a key point of contention between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders. In the four years since, the party establishment has come around to Sanders’ view. During the primary, all the major Democratic candidates called for a $15 national wage floor — Biden included. In his first speech as a 2020 candidate, the former vice president told a crowd in Pittsburg that the wage hike is “well past time” and that “it’s time to start rewarding work over wealth.”
That shift reflects the influence of the “Fight for $15” campaign that labor unions have waged around the country.
What California is doing:
California was the first state to approve a $15 minimum wage when lawmakers and then-Gov. Jerry Brown cut a deal with labor unions in 2016. The unions agreed to take a minimum wage measure off the ballot if the state passed a law increasing wages. Brown won a provision that allows the state to suspend wage increases during economic downturns. California’s law gradually phases in wage increases over eight years, with a $15 minimum required at all businesses in 2023. In July, Gov. Gavin Newsom said that despite the pandemic-induced economic downturn, he would not delay the next hike, slated for January 1, 2021.
How’s it going here?
Critics said the forced raises would lead employers to lay off people and replace them with machines—as one Los Angeles business owner did when he learned he’d have to pay his dish washers more. But empirical research suggests that for the most part, pay increases are not pushing people out of jobs. An economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, studied seven states, including California, that have raised wages and found minimal impact on employment. However, we haven’t yet hit the $15 requirement. In 2020, the state’s minimum wage is $13 for workers at companies of 26 employees or more, and $12 at smaller businesses.
A more recent study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that a $15 federal minimum would boost the income of 27 million workers, but come at the expense of 1.3 million jobs.
Give workers paid family leave
What Biden and Harris are proposing:
In late July, Biden announced a new $75 billion annual plan to boost child and elder care. Part of plan: 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. Biden says he will pay for it, at least in part, by closing a tax break for real estate investors who earn more than $400,000 per year.
His proposal is hardly an outlier within his own party. During the primary, all the major Democratic candidates said they wanted Americans to be able to take at least three months off work — with pay — to care for a new baby or seriously ill family member. Former candidate and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand introduced legislation that would create a national family leave program giving workers two-thirds of their normal pay for up to 12 weeks, and 34 Democratic senators co-sponsored the bill. Even the Trump administration supports a policy that it characterizes as expanding paid family leave, though the legislation doesn’t actually provide families with additional money.
What California is doing:
In 2004, California was the first state in the nation to create paid family leave, offering workers six weeks of partial pay to care for a newborn or sick family member. Workers pay for it through a 1% payroll tax that goes into the State Disability Insurance fund. Gov. Gavin Newsom has expanded the program, giving workers 8 weeks of paid family leave starting on July 1.
How’s it going here?
Though businesses feared increased costs and turnover from giving workers paid family leave, a Harvard study of the program’s first six years showed that didn’t turn out to be the case. But while almost all workers pay into the program, only half of eligible mothers and a quarter of eligible fathers took paid family leave in 2017, state officials report. Many low-wage workers don’t take paid leave because they can’t afford to get by on partial earnings (the program gives workers 60% to 70% of their normal paychecks, depending on their income). Other workers don’t take it because they may lose their jobs if they do. In August, the California Legislature passed a bill that would make it illegal for most businesses to fire an employee who takes paid leave.
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