East Bay food
fromKqed
1 day agoThese Workers Keep Produce Moving In the Golden State | KQED
California's food supply relies on the Oakland Produce Market and the maintenance of irrigation canals by Big Valley Divers.
The farmworkers who feed all of us should be able to also feed themselves and their families with the wages they make. Instead, this administration is unlawfully cutting their wages and transferring billions from workers to employers. We need to do what is right for our farmworkers and stop these wage cuts.
DLSE Investigations and Enforcement Employers doing business in California are well aware of the DLSE, aka the Labor Commissioner's Office, which, among other things, investigates wage and hour practices and adjudicates employees' wage theft claims. With Superbowl LX on our minds, we thought it appropriate to take a time out for a recap of the 2025 DLSE season's expansive impact on employers.
A letter writer takes issue with the GOP Chairman of Santa Cruz's lament that Gavin Newsom and California Democrats have sabotaged state legislation that would have eliminated taxes on tips for low-wage heroes like servers and bartenders. Her complaint is that Republicans blocked legislative efforts to raise California's minimum wage, implying that if Republicans really cared about workers, they would support a higher minimum wage.
The U.S.'s population growth is slowing as immigration has declined amid President Donald Trump's deportation push and stricter border policies. According to new Census Bureau data, the drop-off is the biggest since the COVID-19 pandemic. From July 2024 to July 2025, the population of the United States grew by 1.8 million people (about 0.5%). This was mostly driven by immigration: During that period, the U.S. added 1.3 million immigrants.
Most American dairy cows are milked by immigrants. On Dale Hemminger's farm in upstate New York, the cows are milked by robots. When a cow wants to be milked, it walks up to a machine that cleans its udder, attaches cups to its teats, draws the milk and dispenses a treat. In a barn that Hemminger plans to open this year, other robots will roam the floor like little automated pooper scoopers, picking up manure.
Almost a quarter of adults in Humboldt County are enrolled in CalFresh. This puts the county at the 9th highest enrollment in California, up from 19th in 2014. About 14% of California residents use CalFresh, the state's version of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But usage in the far northern portion of the state is much higher, according to a report from the University of California, Davis.