Each data point corresponds to the base wage for a step in the UC's tentative agreement pay scale. Hover over each data point to view details. In the Rent Burden plot, the yellow band corresponds to the Rent Burdened range and the red band corresponds to the Extreme Rent Burdened range (based on U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) definition of rent burden). Toggle the dates to see how your rent burden moves through the life of the contract (note that this change is more noticeable when viewed on larger screens).
The rent burden calculation is based on the 40th percentile fair market rate for renting a 1-bedroom apartment at each campus' locality (data source: HUD). For Apr 2023, we used the 2023 fair market rent. We projected the fair market rent for Oct 2023 to Oct 2024 using the 5-year average annual increase in rent (6.78%). Note that the HUD's fair market rents are estimates based on pre-pandemic economic trends. Real time economic data suggests these estimates are below current market conditions, meaning that the actual rent burden may be greater than what is plotted. Thank you to those who compiled HUD's fair market rate for UC campuses. The monthly wage for each step can be found in the tentative agreement tables: ASEs, GSRs
Even after realizing the full extent of our raises in 2.5 years, the vast majority of grad worker employees will still be classified as rent burdened or extreme rent burdened. For GSR's, rent burden increases over the life of this contract because these raises do not match the average yearly increases in rent over the past 5 years.
These base pays would be effective starting Oct 2023 and assume a 12-month appointment (although a 12-month appt is not guaranteed for ASE's).
Current data reflects proposals from Dec 8 (UAW) and Dec 15 (UC). We will be updating the tracker as proposed wages are verified.
This plot aims to visualize the movement on a central bargaining issue over the course of negotiations between the two bargaining parties.
As a disclaimer, the data used in the visualization summarizes base wage proposals using information that is most generalizable across all grad workers. The visualization does not reflect details like campus-based adjustments and new experience-based increments. For complete proposal details, please see the bargaining update documents from FairUCNow.