Becerra promises higher wages for Fresno County workers at Fresno stop
Becerra targeted Fresno County’s long-term home health care workers, pitching higher wages in a county where pay and benefits already topped $109,000 for full-time staff.
Xavier Becerra used his Fresno stop to promise higher wages for Fresno County’s long-term home health care workers, putting a labor pledge in front of voters just days before the June 2, 2026 primary election. The Democrat’s pitch landed in a county payroll picture that showed 9,155 employees in 2024, including 6,930 full-time, year-round workers, with total compensation of $918,912,553.
Becerra returned to Fresno on May 27 to show support for workers in the In-Home Supportive Services program, which provides in-home care for about 24,000 elderly residents and people with disabilities across Fresno County. About 2,000 workers are covered by the program’s union benefits structure. In May 2025, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors approved a new three-year contract for those workers that raised hourly wages from $17.10 to $18.35 and increased union-provided health care benefits after more than two years of negotiations, with benefits emerging as a major sticking point for SEIU Local 2015.
The county’s broader labor picture gives Becerra’s pledge local weight. Fresno County’s 2024 median pay for full-time, year-round county employees was $68,529, and median pay plus benefits reached $109,404. County labor agreements show several bargaining units headed toward contract deadlines in 2025 and 2026, including Unit 43’s expiration on Dec. 7, 2025, and Unit 01’s expiration on April 12, 2026, underscoring that wage talks were already pressing inside county government.
Any pay increase for county workers would have to move through the County of Fresno’s labor and budget process, not campaign rhetoric alone. The county’s salary resolution says negotiated salaries are reflected in the Board-approved salary schedule, meaning changes would require action that affects local bargaining units and public finances.
For Fresno County voters, that makes Becerra’s promise measurable. The question is not whether higher wages sound popular, but whether a candidate can turn a campaign stop into a deal that fits the county’s labor structure, its existing contract deadlines and the taxpayer-funded payroll that already runs into the hundreds of millions.
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