News of the Week — New effort underway to amend Prop. 13

NewsAugust 16, 2018

Each week we share articles on subjects that are important to NUHW and its members. Here are several must-read stories over the past seven days:

Worker paychecks in July actually declined when accounting for inflation, according to Labor Department figures, CNBC reports.

The Times of San Diego reports that backers of a proposed initiative that could dramatically increase taxes on commercial and industrial properties by undoing some protections imposed by 1978’s Proposition 13 submitted thousands of petition signatures Tuesday in hopes of getting the issue before voters in 2020.

Drug overdoses killed about 72,000 Americans last year, a record number that reflects a rise of around 10 percent, according to new preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control. The New York Times reports that the death toll is higher than the peak yearly death totals from H.I.V., car crashes or gun deaths.

A new study finds that rents are dropping for high-end apartments in the Bay Area, but still going up for working class housing, The Washington Post reports. In Los Angeles, rents are still rising for all levels of housing.

Not longer after agreeing to pay union workers at least $15 per hour, Disneyland announced that it was bumping up nonunion to workers to at least $15.75 per hour, according to the Orange County register.