On May 31, 2024, covered health care employees became entitled to a minimum wage of $23 per hour. That is a substantial increase from the $16 per hour minimum wage for all employees in California beginning on January 1, 2024, which previously applied to the covered health care employees.
All employees of health care facilities with 10,000 or more full-time equivalent employees who provide patient care, health care services, or services that support health care. This includes even job titles you might not expect, like janitors, housekeepers, groundskeepers, guards, food service workers, gift shop workers, call center workers, warehouse workers, and laundry workers regardless of the formal job title.
Next, covered health care workers may bring a civil action or the Labor Commissioner may enforce this new law administratively, through the same means available for violations of any other state minimum wage laws. Finally, there is a program that allows covered health care facilities to seek a waiver which pauses the schedule of the health care minimum wage requirements for one year if the employer shows documents that raise doubts that the employer could continue financially without bankrupting if the employer complied with the health care minimum wage.
(See Link(s): Labor Code section 1182.14)