As we enter a pivotal moment in our democracy, the challenges facing US workers are mounting. A robust labor movement is not only the backbone of a strong economy but also a vital pillar of democracy itself. Our mission—to conduct evidence-based research and drive forward policy solutions to improve the lives of working families—has never been more critical.
In the past year, we have focused on key issues in California such as protecting worker safety and privacy in the era of AI; shaping policies for a just transition to a green economy; addressing the ongoing child care crisis; reforming the criminal justice system; ensuring health care access and affordability; and protecting the social safety net.
In addition to our research, we are training a diverse next generation of labor scholars and organizers to confront the struggles ahead and lead with vision and purpose.
Amidst ongoing debates over workplace technologies, worker protections, and climate resilience, IRLE and our centers provide vital tools to California and federal policymakers who are crafting the laws that will shape our shared future. We continue to serve as a trusted hub for research that uplifts working people, strengthens the labor movement, and fosters a world where economic justice is achievable for all.
Student Programs and Leadership Development
IRLE is cultivating the next generation of labor scholars and leaders through experiential learning programs and classes, paid research apprenticeships and internships, and organizer trainings.
Taking the education outside of the classroom and into hands-on organizing helped me realize that I want to pursue this line of work after graduation.
— Student in the Labor Center's “Field Study in Labor and Community Organizing” course
I firmly believe that the skills I acquired during this program will enable me to drive meaningful change in the fields of research and public policy, regardless of the path I choose to pursue.
— California Policy Lab Summer Instituter
I never thought I would get the opportunity to do research at Berkeley. However, SSRP made it possible for first-generation students like me to land an amazing research mentorship. I recommend this amazing program to everyone I meet.
— Social Science Research Pathways undergraduate research mentee
Photo: Student participants in Solidarity Spring, an “alternative” Spring Break program offered by the Labor Center that introduces undergraduates to the labor movement through workshops, events, art, and cultural experiences on and off campus.
Student Programs and Leadership Development By the Numbers
Research Support and Public Programs
IRLE is a hub for labor-related research across campus and beyond. We fund new research from faculty, graduate students, and dissertation fellows; provide a campus home for visiting scholars from around the world; and host public talks and seminars on a range of timely topics.
Research Support and Public Programs By the Numbers
Centers and Research Highlights
The Labor Center's research informs public policy and strengthens the labor movement. Policy analysis of key issues such as protecting workers in the era of AI health care affordability, and the emergent green economy help to build a sustainable, equitable, and inclusive economy for the people of California.
LABOR CENTER RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
AI in the Workplace
As AI and digital technologies continue to reshape workplaces, lawmakers are scrambling to keep up. Meanwhile, the Labor Center's Technology and Work team is working with unions, privacy experts, civil rights advocates, and other stakeholders to ensure the responsible development and deployment of data-driven technologies and related public policies, centering the voices of workers and other impacted communities.
Key Publications
- The Role of Public Sector Workers in Ensuring the Responsible Adoption of AI by the State of California
- Negotiating Workers’ Rights at the Frontier of Digital Workplace Technologies in 2023
- Overview of New Rights for Workers under the California Consumer Privacy Act
- Pandemic-Related Trends in Warehouse Technology Adoption
LABOR CENTER RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
Health Care Access and Affordability
Through rigorous research, the Labor Center's Health Care research team evaluates and provides recommendations on policies that promote equitable access to affordable healthcare in California. Recent studies have:
- Explored a proposal to expand Covered California to undocumented Californians through a "mirror marketplace"
- Provided estimates for the impacts on patients, workers, and the state budget of raising the state health care worker minimum wage
- Outlined a decision-making framework for the state office tasked with gathering data on health care affordability
LABOR CENTER RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
California's Workforce
The Labor Center’s research on the state's workforce and public employees provides essential insights to policymakers, state agencies, unions, environmental organizations, and other stakeholders. This body of work advances practical solutions for California's diverse workforce and economic resilience.
Publications include:
The California Policy Lab (CPL) provides the data infrastructure and rigorous research expertise needed to translate administrative data into impactful solutions, informing policy changes across critical issues in California, including education, criminal justice reform, poverty, and the social safety net.
Through partnerships with government agencies, CPL provides actionable insights that help strengthen programs serving vulnerable Californians.
CPL RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
Filling the Gap
CalFresh Eligibility Among University of California and California Community College Students
This report from the California Policy Lab is exactly the kind of data we need to reform policy and help meet students’ basic needs.
—Bryce McKibben, Senior Director of Policy & Advocacy at The Hope Center at Temple University
CPL published the first-ever estimates of how many UC and California Community College students were eligible for, and enrolled in, CalFresh benefits. State Senator Nancy Skinner spoke at a CPL-hosted webinar presenting the findings, which showed considerable room for growth in enrolling eligible students in the state's food assistance program.
CPL RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
Bringing Families Home Program Evaluation
This in-depth evaluation examined outcomes for the first two years of the pilot of Bringing Families Home (BFH), a state program that supports families in the child welfare system who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. CPL’s evaluation showed promising impact: BFH helped connect families with rapid re-housing programs, while reducing their use of shelter services.
CPL RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
Consecutive Sentencing in California
I want to commend [CPL] for your excellent work as part of the grant for your research to support the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code. You produced high quality information and analysis that shaped policy that will affect hundreds of thousands of people—and perhaps more.
—Matthew Mizel, Ph.D., MSW, Director of Criminal Justice Research, Corrections, Arnold Ventures
This report was the third in a series to unpack the complexity behind prison sentencing in California. It was produced as part of CPL’s research partnership with the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, a state agency that is studying and making recommendations on improving California’s criminal legal system.
Research from the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics continues to shape state and national public discourse and policy on the minimum wage and the gig economy.
A first-of-its-kind analysis of app passenger and delivery drivers’ wages in the Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle metropolitan areas which finds that gig drivers are barely scraping by. Drawing on data from more than 52,000 trips by almost 1,100 drivers, this joint Labor Center study found that most drivers in these cities make significantly less than minimum wage when all work time, gas, and vehicle wear and tear are factored in. The report was released as the California Supreme Court heard arguments on the legality of Prop 22 which classifies gig passenger and delivery drivers as independent contractors.
The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) is the national leader in early care and education workforce research and policy. CSCCE researchers frequently provide expert commentary and solutions to policymakers across the county. As of 2023, CSCCE is also a core partner in the National Early Care and Education Workforce Center, funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, coordinating and providing technical assistance and rigorous research to advance the recruitment and retention of a diverse, qualified, and effective workforce.
CSCCE RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
The Multilayered Effects of Racism on Early Educators in California
This report shows how racism affects how much early educators are paid and the jobs they hold. CSCCE researchers found that more education does not equate to higher pay for Asian, Black, and Latina educators. The report led to a keynote address at a major research conference and a two-part convening to discuss solutions.
CSCCE RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT
Working for Worthy Wages
A Lived History of the Child Care Compensation Movement, 1970-2002
For several decades, early childhood educators led a national movement for rights, raises, and respect—often in opposition to leaders and advocates in the early care and education field who said that these women were being unprofessional by focusing on their own economic needs and deflecting energy from the "quality of care children receive," as if the two were not connected. These activist teachers built their movement with creativity and commitment to their cause.
Shaping Public Debate
Our research is helping to shape public debate on key issues facing U.S. workers. Last fiscal year, IRLE research and experts were featured in more than 800 news articles and broadcasts from major California and national media outlets.
Media Highlights
Women of color make up nearly two-thirds of the early childhood workforce in California, yet they routinely earn lower wages and hold lower positions than their white peers—even when they have more education, according to a new report from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley … 'People often assume that more education leads to higher wages or job advancements, but our data showed that wasn’t the case,' said Yoonjeon Kim, a lead research analyst at the UC Berkeley center.
— Low pay. Fewer leadership roles. Black and Latina child-care workers deal with racial barriers, Los Angeles Times
Data showed wages went up and employment did not fall, said Michael Reich, a labor economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley. 'I was surprised at how little, or how difficult it was to find disemployment effects.'
— New $20 minimum wage for fast food workers in California set to start Monday, Washington Post
And there are fresh signs that more California consumers are struggling financially. The share of credit card delinquencies, for example, rose in December to the highest level since late 2009 around the time of the Great Recession, according to the California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley. 'In California, the credit trends are deteriorating; they’re not headed in a good direction,' said its executive director, Evan White.
— Why Biden is getting little credit for the economy, especially in California, Los Angeles Times
'Workers who make higher wages are more productive. … They’re healthier, they’re happier,' [director of the Labor Center's Low-Wage Work Program Enrique] Lopezlira told the Chronicle. Currently, he said, 'a lot of these workers are paid so little that they’re having to rely on public programs to make ends meet.'
— Restaurants say they must cut jobs, raise prices thanks to new California law. Labor experts are wary, San Francisco Chronicle
'If technologies are not developed with the user in mind, they often fail,' said Lisa Kresge, a research and policy associate at the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center, who has written about union responses to technology.
— Tech Fears Are Showing Up on Picket Lines, New York Times
'Students shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not they can afford their next meal,' explains Genie Kim, Director of Student Mental Health and Well-being at the UC Office of the President. '[California Policy Lab's] estimates show that we have a lot of work to do in order to improve access and connect more eligible students to CalFresh benefits.'
— More than 70% of UC, CCC students are not using accessible food stamps: study, KRON4
The parents can't afford [child care], and then the centers can't afford to pay a wage that would honor the work that that teacher provides,' said Anna Powell, a senior researcher at the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley.
— One Way to Help Teacher Salaries Go Further: Free Housing, New York Times
Policy Impact
Last year, IRLE researchers provided crucial public comment, technical assistance, evaluations, and testimony on programs and legislation from a wide range of local, state and federal agencies and legislative bodies including:
Our work would not be possible without the support of our generous funders and partners.
- Administration for Children and Families
- Alliance for Early Success
- Arnold Ventures
- Blue Shield of California Foundation
- BlueGreen Alliance
- California Children and Families Commission
- California Community Foundation
- California Department of Food and Agriculture
- California Department of Motor Vehicles
- California Department of Public Health
- The California Endowment
- California Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development
- California Health Care Foundation
- California Law Revision Commission
- California State Association of Counties
- California State Transportation Agency
- California Wellness Foundation
- California Workforce Development Board
- Child Trends Incorporated
- Clean Slate Initiative
- Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
- Cornell University
- Covered California
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- The European Research Council
- First 5 California
- Ford Foundation
- Foundation for Child Development
- Freedom Together Foundation
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- The James Irvine Foundation
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Lyle Spencer Foundation
- National Education Association
- National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health
- The National Institute on Retirement Security
- The National Science Foundation (NSF)
- New Venture Fund
- Oregon Department of Education
- Paris School of Economics
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
- Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
- Rosenberg Foundation
- Russell Sage Foundation
- The San Francisco Foundation
- San Francisco Office of Economic and Workforce Development
- Sierra Health Foundation
- Smith Richardson Foundation
- Tides Foundation
- Tipping Point Community
- Tufts University
- University of California Office of the President
- U.S. Department of Agriculture - Economics Research Service
- U.S. Department of Energy
- U.S. Institute of Education Studies (IES)
- W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation
- Washington Center for Equitable Growth
- The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
- The William T. Grant Foundation
- Woven Foundation
Support our research
IRLE partners with emerging and established researchers at UC Berkeley and beyond to foster innovative analysis and research that influences policy and improves workers’ lives. Your donation supports student programs and fellowships, as well as research awards for UC Berkeley faculty as they deliver hard evidence about inequality, the economy, and the nature of work.
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© 2025 Institute for Research on Labor and Employment