California Divide

Nigel Duara, a national, multi-media journalist, will join CalMatters to cover poverty and inequality issues as part of the California Divide project, a unique collaboration among major state news organizations. Duara most recently worked as a Los Angeles-based national and climate correspondent at VICE News Tonight on HBO. Previously, he was a national correspondent based […]

Low-wage workers will ring in the new decade with bigger paychecks as a round of minimum wage hikes takes effect on Jan. 1. Currently, the state minimum wage is $11 an hour for businesses with 25 or fewer employees and $12 an hour for larger employers. Beginning Jan. 1, both those rates will increase by […]

Starting Jan. 1, a new California law will require some businesses to re-classify independent contractors as employees — granting them benefits such as overtime pay and the right to join a union. Businesses and organized labor both heavily lobbied lawmakers over the bill, and while some industries won exemptions, others did not. The law is […]

When she went to La Clinica de la Raza health center in Oakland for a routine checkup, the 54-year-old immigrant told her doctor she was under a lot of stress. Work had begun to dry up for her husband, a day laborer, and money was tight. Marta, who asked to be identified by a first […]

El Cajon's population is more than 70% white, its politics conservative Republican. But it's changing as it becomes home to one of the nation's largest populations of Chaldeans, a persecuted religious and ethnic minority from Iraq.

A surprise eviction notice changed the lives of Juan Vera, his wife Maria and their three children forever. A representative of the apartment complex in Downey, where they had lived for more than 20 years, handed Maria an envelope.  Maria doesn’t understand English, so Camila, her 14-year-old daughter, read it to her.  “Did you see […]

Kenda Williams, 51, went to West Coast Dental in Torrance to treat the shooting pain in her molar. She spent the day in a drug-induced haze. Williams later found out she had signed up for two credit cards that day to cover her dentist’s $9,055 bill. Unemployed and on Medi-Cal, the Los Angeles resident had […]

The Trump administration finalized a rule Wednesday that will cut off food stamps to roughly 688,000 American adults by requiring states to enforce work requirements. The U.S. Agriculture Department said the move will save about $5.5 billion over five years. The rule takes effect in April 2020. “This is about restoring the original intent of […]

Tamara Hudson’s workday routine typically starts before 4 a.m., when the bleary-eyed single mother rouses her 2-year-old son in their Redwood City home, wraps him in a blanket and places him in her Honda for the first of her 40-mile round trips to the closest daycare provider she can afford. After dropping him off in […]

A recent proposal by the Trump administration to increase the cost of applying for U.S. citizenship will disproportionately affect low-income immigrants and could dissuade many green card holders from applying, immigration advocates say. The proposed new rule, published on November 14 by the Federal Register with a month-long comment period, would raise the naturalization application fee for […]