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Fast food workers from across California rallied at the state Capitol in Sacramento, urging lawmakers to pass AB 257. Aug. 16, 2022, Photo by Rahul Lal, CalMatters

California Divide

Covering income inequality across the state

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California’s gap between rich and poor is among the largest in the country, and it is widening. We explore how income inequality is reverberating across the state.

California Divide
Newport Beach was supposed to build 2 affordable units in 8 years — why so little?
The coastal community was called out in a state audit as one of many troubling flaws contributing to California’s affordable housing crisis. Researchers say a statewide planning process has allowed wealthier cities to lobby for fewer housing units than inland and less-wealthy cities. A new system is underway to bring more equity, but will it be strong enough to resist NIMBYism?
By • December 28, 2020
Maria Reyes, who tested positive for COVID-19, quarantines at her home in Mendota on Dec. 12, 2020. Reyes declined a hotel room with Housing for the Harvest out of concern she would have to leave her teenage daughter. Photo by Gary Kazanjian
California Divide
Why few farmworkers isolate in California’s free COVID-19 hotel rooms
Despite a heavy toll of COVID-19 among California’s farmworkers, who often live in crowded homes, Newsom’s Housing for the Harvest program has made just 81 hotel reservations for isolation or quarantine as of Dec. 16. Given pervasive fear among farmworkers of using governmental programs, are Newsom’s hotel rooms the wrong answer to a persisting problem?
By , and • December 19, 2020
Grapes are harvested from a vineyard as smoke from a massive wildfire fills the air near Oakville, on Oct. 13, 2017. Photo by Rich Pedroncelli, AP Photo
California Divide
New bill pushes California to stock, distribute masks to farmworkers during wildfires
Lea este artículo en español.  State Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) wants the state to acquire a stockpile of N-95 masks and set up a strike team to distribute them to farmworkers when they continue to work under dangerous conditions during wildfires in order to keep the country fed. Although Assembly Bill 73 has no funding attached, […]
By • December 9, 2020
Marcial Delgado, center, poses for a photo with his two sons Fernando Delgado, 12, left, and Javier Alonzo, 8, outside his home in Campbell, on Friday, Dec. 4, 2020. Delgado worked in the cafeteria at NVidia, a Santa-Clara based tech company, for 20 years before the pandemic hit and sent him home. He still gets paid by the company, he said. Photo by Ray Chavez, Bay Area News Group
California Divide
Despite shuttered campuses, some Silicon Valley tech firms still paying cafeteria workers, janitors
Lea este artículo en español.  The widespread business closures at the start of the pandemic marked the first time in nearly 20 years that Marcial Delgado couldn’t cook or serve lunch in the cafeteria at Nvidia. He didn’t return to the company’s massive Santa Clara headquarters for nine months, but the single father-of-three still got paid. […]
By • December 7, 2020

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News and analysis on poverty and income inequality in California.
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