In its first formal response to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $297 billion spending plan, the Legislature gave feedback on Wednesday: The governor’s fiscal forecasters are too optimistic and the state needs to prepare for a worsening budgetary outlook.
California workers filed a record number of wage theft claims last year after a dip during the pandemic, and they’re waiting longer than ever to get those claims heard.
Workers file the claims when they allege their employer failed to comply with the minimum wage, overtime rules, laws mandating meal and rest breaks or other labor policies. Officials in the state’s Labor Commissioner’s office have, where workers are often immigrants. The number of claims filed by workers seeking back pay last year surged to more than 38,000 as of mid-December, after averaging about 30,000 a year prior to the pandemic. Workers filed about 25,000 claims in 2020 and 19,000 in 2021. Officials estimated last month the total number of claims received in 2022 would surpass 40,000, “the most in recent history.”
It exacerbated a backlog that the Labor Commissioner’s office has for years struggled to address in a timely manner, as CalMattersWait times for a claim to be heard by a state hearing officer climbed to an eye-popping 800 days, according to the Labor Commissioner’s office. That’s nearly seven times the maximum set by state law and nearly a year longer than the
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