Latino workers drive California’s economy but face deep inequities
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- Latino workers power California’s economy but face persistent wage inequities.
- College attainment rates for Latinos in the San Joaquin Valley lag far behind peers.
- Housing, health coverage, and job access gaps expose Latinos to economic instability.
California’s economic engine depends on the labor of Latino workers in the San Joaquin Valley, but two new studies released Sept. 10 show that many of those workers remain trapped in low-wage jobs, locked out of higher education, and burdened by housing and health care inequities.
“Our findings show a need for targeted investment in opportunities to increase the number of students completing higher education,” said UCLA research analyst Rosario Majano, one of the authors of the reports. “As college education continues to get more expensive, Latino students from low-income households will face compounding challenges to accessing higher education.”
If you look at the overall workforce, Majano said, about one in four workers in the North San Joaquin Valley — San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced counties — hold a college degree. In the central San Joaquin Valley counties of Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and Kern, it’s one in five.
But when she and her colleagues at UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute focused on Latino workers, the gap was stark: just 10% in the North Valley and 13% in the Central Valley had earned a degree — roughly half the share of those region’s workforce overall.
For Majano, a first-generation college graduate from Stockton, the numbers hit close to home. It was surprising to her how far Latino workers lagged behind on this pathway to higher earnings potential.
Together, this area of the San Joaquin Valley forms the backbone of California’s agriculture industry and increasingly as hubs for health care, education, construction and manufacturing. Their workforce here, the researchers argue, is critical not only to the valley’s prosperity but to the state’s overall economic future.
In addition to investing in educational opportunities for the future workforce, Majano urged policy makers to bring more diverse and technical industries to the area that will incentivize students to pursue higher education, stay in the region or return after graduating.
Shared struggles, shared strengths
The UCLA researchers also sifted through data for the Bay Area and Los Angeles County, and they found Latinos in those regions shared many of the same struggles:
Wages: Latinos earn the lowest hourly wages of any racial or ethnic group. Latina women face the steepest gaps, earning $16–$18 per hour in the Valley, $21 in the Bay Area, and just $18 in Los Angeles, compared with nearly $40 for white men.
.Education: Roughly a quarter to a third of Latino workers in each region lack a high school diploma, while bachelor’s degree attainment hovers between 10% and 25% — the lowest of any group.
Housing: Latino workers experience the highest rates of overcrowding, with about one in four living in packed households, and many paying unaffordable shares of income toward rent or mortgages.
Health insurance: Latinos are the least likely to receive coverage from employers, with uninsured rates reaching as high as one in five for men in Los Angeles.
“Generally, workers in the Central Valley are paid less across industries than workers in larger metropolitan and coastal areas, and they have less access to higher-paying industries like tech,” Majano said. “Despite high rates of labor force participation, especially among Latino workers, the job opportunities in the region do not pay enough for workers to comfortably afford their cost of living, and have spare funds for emergencies.”
The pressures and realities for workers
In the Central Valley counties of Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, and Kern, agriculture dominates. Nearly one in five Latino workers there is employed in farming, fishing, or forestry jobs — occupations at high risk of automation and paying below regional median wages. Latinas in the region also face the highest unemployment rate of any group: 12%.
Despite higher homeownership rates than Latinos statewide, Central Valley Latino homeowners own houses worth significantly less than those owned by white or Asian residents, limiting wealth-building opportunities.
A college education can open doors and improve pay, Majano said, but even when Latinos have college degrees, they are paid significantly less than their peers.
In the northern San Joaquin Valley, 29% of Latina workers are employed in the education, health and social services industries. According to Latino Data Hub, the median wage for college-educated workers in this sector is $38 per hour. For college-educated Latinas, however, it is $31.
In the counties of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Merced, Latinos are more likely than their Central Valley peers to work in construction and manufacturing, industries that pay somewhat better than farm work but are still vulnerable to economic downturns and automation.
Even with higher labor force participation — three quarters of Latino men are working or seeking work — unemployment remains stubbornly high, especially for Latinas (11%). And while more than half of Latino workers in the North Valley own homes, overcrowding and high rent burdens remain widespread.
Immigration raids add new pressure
Recent immigration raids only increase the vulnerability of the Latino workers they’re targeting, Majano said. A separate UC Merced Community and Labor Center study, released in August, found that the escalations in federal enforcement have already had a chilling effect on California’s economy.
Between May and July, the number of Californians reporting private-sector work fell nearly 5%, with noncitizens seeing the steepest drop, the UC Merced research showed, and the decline was comparable to the first year of the Great Recession and the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Many workers have no choice but to go to work and risk being detained,” Majano said. “In the event that workers are afraid to show up to work, we can expect to see labor shortages. In the construction industry, for example, recent news from the General Contractors Association reported that projects of all types were seeing delays because there aren’t enough qualified workers to fill the jobs. qualified workers”
The San Joaquin Valley has been a key player in California’s economy, now the fourth largest in the world. It lies within California’s Central Valley, which produces a quarter of the nation’s food supply, and the North San Joaquin Valley’s manufacturing and logistics corridors connect the state to global markets.
Latinos, who already make up 40% of the statewide workforce, are projected to account for nearly 80% of new workers nationwide in the next six years, the UCLA researchers said.
Yet unless wage disparities, health coverage gaps, housing inequities, and education barriers are addressed, the UCLA report warned, the valley’s workforce will remain vulnerable — and California’s economic resilience with it.
“Roughly half of all renter households in the CSJV are rent burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent,” Majano said. “The Central Valley may be more affordable than other regions in the state, but regional wages and opportunities do not offset the lower cost of living.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Latino workers drive California’s economy but face deep inequities."
