Newsom signs bill raising minimum wage for California healthcare workers to $25

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) signed a closely watched bill Friday that raises the minimum wage for California health care workers to $25 an hour.

Supporters of the bill, Senate Bill 525, said the bill would increase wages for health care employees facing staffing shortages that have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) of California celebrated Newsom’s decision, which was in doubt until he signed the bill Friday evening.

“Californians have seen the courage and commitment of health care workers during the pandemic, and now that same fearlessness and commitment to patients is driving a historic investment in the workers who make our health care system strong and accessible to all,” Tia Orr, executive director of SEIU California said in a statement.

Since the start of 2022, the state has set requirements requiring all industries to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The bill Newsom signed Friday will establish five separate pay increases, depending on the nature of the employer.

State Sen. María Elena Durazo, who introduced the bill in the state Senate, thanked Newsom for signing the “historic investment in our healthcare workforce” in an article on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The bill is expected to raise wages for 455,000 employees, according to a report from the University of California, Berkeley, Labor Center. Three out of four employees who would receive a pay raise are women, and 76 percent of employees eligible for the raise are people of color.

Employees who “provide services that directly or indirectly support patient care” will see their salaries increase. Medical assistance, certified nursing assistants, health care aides, technicians, maintenance workers, janitorial or housekeeping personnel, groundskeepers, security guards and food service workers will benefit all of the bill, SEIU California said.

Newsom’s decision comes as more than 75,000 health care workers at the Kaiser Permanente hospital chain went on strike across the country. The group said it was striking due to a lack of staff.

In a statement to The Hill, a nurse at Kaiser Los Angeles Medical Center said the company is “negotiating in bad faith on the solutions we need to end Kaiser’s understaffing crisis.”