Gov. Newsom Signs Bill Delaying Healthcare Worker Minimum Wage Increase By One Month

An urgent bill that delays the minimum wage of healthcare workers from increasing to $23 an hour was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom over the weekend, delaying the increase from what was supposed to be on June 1st to July 1st.

Senate Bill 828, authored by Senator Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), delays the minimum wage shift by one month. Originally, a health care worker minimum wage increase bill was approved last year. Under the law, any health care facility employer with 10,000 or more full-time equivalent employees (FTEE), any covered health care facility employer that is a part of an integrated health care delivery system or a health care system with 10,000 or more FTEEs, a covered health care facility employer that is a dialysis clinic or is a person that owns, controls, or operates a dialysis clinic, or a covered health facility owned, affiliated, or operated by a county with a population of more than 5,000,000 as of January 1, 2023, the minimum wage for covered health care employees is to be $23 per hour from June 1, 2024, to May 31, 2025, inclusive, $24 per hour from June 1, 2025, to May 31, 2026, inclusive, and $25 per hour from June 1, 2026, and until as adjusted. Other healthcare workers have similar tiered raises, included some getting bumps as big as $18 an hour to $25 an hour between 2024 and 2033.

While SB 525 was made into law, calls were soon made to align the raise date with the start of the fiscal year on July 1st, to help better coordinate with budget projections. In addition, the month delay would also help out the state with their massive $73 billion budget shortfall. Governor Newsom himself even recommended the delay as early as January of this year.

With the budget situation looming, SB 828 was written by Senator Durazo to help align the tiered wage increases across healthcare workers. While the bill faced some Republican and Democrat opposition, the bill moved up quickly because of it’s urgent status. On May 23rd, the bill passed the Assembly 61-7 with 12 abstaining and then passed the Senate 31-1 with 8 abstaining only a week later, hoping to have the bill be signed into law before June 1st. Newsom then signed it over the weekend, only hours before the deadline.

Despite being a rare June-passed bill, little was said about the legislation, with no statements given about SB 828’s passage. Many in Sacramento, however, said that the bill was going to be a done deal, as it had support from the vast majority of lawmakers and the Governor. It was also urgently needed to be passed by June 1st by many lawmakers.

“This was a buzzer-beater,” explained Sandy Chalmers, a health care law analyst who monitors health care related bills in western states, to the Globe on Monday. “But they really needed that month long delay. They really didn’t tie the raises right either. Originally they were supposed to come up in January, then they were changed to June. Then, as soon as the budget situation in California became more critical, they moved it to the fiscal date.”

“It makes sense, but it also shows you how worried they are about the budget. If there was a strong budget, they wouldn’t be fretting about the start month too much. They wanted to show the importance of health care workers after COVID and to help keep these workers in state. Maybe even get some to move here. But the timing with the budget deficit couldn’t have been worse. SB 828 only highlights that.”