Economic Inequality

Sunnyvale Community Services, the city’s largest safety-net agency, has been turned “upside down,” organizers say, as coronavirus cases rise in the Bay Area and the region has ordered millions of residents to shelter in place. Already, the nonprofit has had to cancel its weekly produce distribution indefinitely due to volunteer shortages and has seen a surge […]

Donna Insalaco had to lay off 40 of the 45 employees at Pizzaiolo, her gourmet pizzeria in downtown Oakland, after sales fell through a “black hole.” “A lot of tears,” Insalaco said, “All of us here live check-to-check.” Responding to a statewide call for restaurants to close their doors to dine-in customers, Pizzaiolo is now […]

With Bay Area residents ordered to start sheltering at home Tuesday to help stop the spread of coronavirus, labor groups, businesses and workers are scrambling to understand how the lockdown will affect thousands of workers who aren’t telecommuting or whose jobs can’t be done remotely. On Monday, less than 24 hours after Gov. Gavin Newsom […]

Mary Ellen Sanchez, a single mother of six in Fresno, works as an in-home supportive service provider for two women. One is paralyzed from the neck down, and the other one is in her late 60s. Like over 400,000 in-home supportive service workers across the state represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 2015, she receives only […]

A global pandemic is upending California's 2020 census outreach efforts while community organizers report difficulty getting residents to set aside privacy concerns — and government distrust. The risk of an undercount could cost a congressional seat and billions in federal funding.

Six utilities serving more than 21 million Californians have announced that they will not shut off customers’ power for non-payment as the coronavirus continues to disrupt daily life. Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Power are taking the step until further notice. The Los Angeles Department of […]

On a typical day at the vast food bank warehouse in San Jose, 80 to 100 volunteers pack apples, oranges, pears, squash and cabbage into boxes to be shipped out to hundreds of distribution sites across Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. On Tuesday, just 17 volunteers showed up. All told, more than 1,000 volunteers […]

In January, I sat among dozens of other reporters in California’s Capitol as we peppered Gov. Gavin Newsom with questions about his spending plan for the year, a bulging $222 billion budget full of progressive proposals: $1.4 billion in new funds for homeless services, expansion of the state’s health insurance for low-income residents, a proposal […]

By Ben Christopher, Jackie Botts and Jacqueline García For all the talk of electability, Sen. Bernie Sanders would have the Democratic presidential nomination in the bag if every voter were like Ryan Frye, his two adult brothers, his sister-in-law and his parents.  The family, which shares a home in the small, rural town of Newman […]

Tanya Harris and her three daughters struggle to breathe in the converted motel room in Salinas they now rent as a studio. Just large enough for a bunkbed and a desk, the room holds all four of them. Harris sleeps on a silver inflatable mattress on the floor. And doctors say the room is making […]