Lauren Hepler
CalMattersLauren Hepler is an investigative reporter at CalMatters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics, and a JPR news partner. She focuses on labor issues and California鈥檚 . She has spent the past decade covering housing, labor and climate issues for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Guardian, the LA Times and others.
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State lawmakers will debate a bill to require annual inspections, new complaint processes and harsher penalties for local governments that don鈥檛 file mandatory reports. -
Out-of-work residents fight new fraud battles. The system bleeds money. And a $1 billion technology overhaul marches on. -
The Supreme Court鈥檚 decision on homelessness will test a shelter system that鈥檚 full of problems 鈥� and lacking accountability. -
Scammers pulled off one of the biggest suspected frauds in U.S. history while laid-off workers scrambled to survive. A CalMatters investigation finds that the EDD missed red flags and failed to make long-promised changes before the pandemic 鈥� and that once the twin crises hit, the state and its top contractors kept making money but were slow to deliver relief. -
Workers denied pandemic-era jobless benefits are still struggling with debt and stress 鈥� collateral damage as they fight a state employment agency on edge about fraud and an appeals system facing a 鈥榟istoric鈥� backlog. What happens next with these and other legal battles will help decide who pays for a multi-billion-dollar debacle three years in the making. -
Many cannabis farms and undocumented farmworkers lost their homes and livelihood, yet they won鈥檛 qualify for federal help. Will legislators and Gov. Newsom, who鈥檚 expected to visit flooded areas Wednesday, commit state funds to remedy that? -
The state went deep into debt to keep jobless benefits flowing during the pandemic. And if it doesn鈥檛 fix its $48 billion unemployment problem, that could derail COVID-19 recovery. -
New moving data and intensifying housing bidding wars undercut fears of a California mass exodus. But some cities have been hit harder, and many rushed moves are difficult to track, obscuring COVID-induced migration.
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Amid winter closures triggered by record virus cases, California kicked off an unprecedented small business rescue plan. Still, business owners warn that it鈥檚 not enough.
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After the Great Recession, California signed an exclusive contract with Bank of America to distribute unemployment benefits through prepaid debit cards. A CalMatters investigation reveals that, to this day, no one knows how much the bank made off the deal. Lawmakers are examining the bank's role in mass account freezes and untold amounts of missing money for thousands of struggling, jobless Californians 鈥� as well as where the bank may have failed to keep unemployment money safe from fraud. -
Labor groups that spent $20 million against Prop. 22 are warning that the measure cements gig workers as a 鈥渟econd class鈥� of workers and mulling limited options to challenge it. -
Gig companies embark on a last-minute spending blitz after a court rules that drivers should be paid as employees and labor groups question campaign tactics.
