The latest numbers, a reflection of the state’s high housing costs and low wages, show 19 percent were poor, some 7.5 million people. The calculation, released Wednesday by the U.S. Census, represents a 1.4 percent improvement over 2016.

California was statistically tied for first with Louisiana and Florida as having the highest poverty rate among the 50 states. Nationally, 14.1 percent of Americans were poor.

The agency’s Supplemental Poverty Measure is considered to be the most accurate yardstick because it takes into account the local cost of living and benefits from government safety net programs.

In the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metro area, renters with an income of $34,308 and homeowners with a mortgage earning $34,424 were deemed below the poverty line.

In the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metro area, the equivalent numbers were $29,038 and $29,128, respectively.

“High housing costs are a key driver of why so many are struggling,” said Sara Kimberlin, a senior policy analyst at the California Budget & Policy Center, a Sacramento think tank, pointing to a “mismatch between higher housing costs and wages not keeping pace.”

Median household rents in California rose by 13.2 percent from 2006 to 2016, while median annual earnings for full-time workers grew by only 4.1 percent over the same period, according to inflation-adjusted numbers in a report by the budget center.

“Wages for workers in the middle and bottom range have been relatively flat,” Kimberlin added. “We’ve mainly seen increases for those at the higher end.”

California’s jobless rate stood at 4.2 percent in July.

Although attention often focuses on high rents in coastal areas, the report noted that in areas where housing is cheaper, wages also are lower. Statewide, more than a third of households pay more than half of their incomes toward housing.

National programs such as tax credits, food assistance, disability benefits and Medicaid (known as Medi-Cal in California) play a crucial role in reducing poverty, the budget center noted.

However, a proposal before Congress to slash food assistance, known as CalFresh in California, and efforts to reduce health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act could thwart anti-poverty efforts, the group said.

Thanks to the ACA, also known as Obamacare, California’s uninsured dropped to 2.8 million from 6.5 million. But progress has slowed, with the portion of uninsured residents dropping to 7.2 percent last year from 7.3 percent in 2016, a far smaller decline than the last four years.

“Congress is making attempts to slash federal funding to Medicaid and shift costs to states,” said Scott Graves, research director of the budget center. “A drip-drip-drip of federal actions is taking a toll on the ability to plan for the future and invest in healthcare. Whether the ACA and Medicaid remain intact will depend on the outcome of the November elections.”

Meanwhile, California lawmakers have enacted new laws to boost affordable housing. And two November ballot measures would address housing: Proposition 1 would approve a $4 billion bond to fund affordable housing construction and rental and home loan subsidies; Proposition 2 would allocate a portion of mental health funds to house the homeless.

State lawmakers have also expanded the California Earned Income Tax Credit, building on the federal EITC which gives tax refunds to poor families. Some 1.4 million California families claimed more than $300 million under the program this year.

However, Joseph Sanberg, founder of CalEITC4Me, a public-private partnership that promoted the expansion, said “California’s poverty crisis is even worse than the new census data shows. Some cite high housing costs as the culprit. But just as big a problem is that too many California jobs pay too low wages. Nearly 3 of 10 workers in California earn less than $12.50 per hour.”

The Supplemental Poverty Measure report released Wednesday, Sept. 12 did not calculate poverty down to the county and city level — numbers which will be released later this year.

A more basic census measurement, which does not account for the cost of living and safety net programs, pegged California’s poverty level at 13.4 percent, considerably below the 19 percent which weighs those factors.

That more basic analysis, released Thursday morning, includes local numbers. It shows that Southern California counties since 2007 largely followed the state’s arc of higher to lower poverty levels as residents weathered the Great Recession.

Still, the number of poor remains higher than it was before the economic crisis. Last year, about 2.5 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties lived below the poverty line compared with 2.2 million in 2007 before the recession hit. That total peaked at 3.1 million in 2012.

San Bernardino County’s poverty rate in 2009 surpassed Los Angeles County’s and peaked in 2014, when one in five people lived in poverty. The rate has since eased but remains the highest in the Los Angeles region at 16.2 percent last year.

The basic poverty measurement varies from year-to-year. In 2017, a person under 65 who made less than $12,752 was considered impoverished; for a family of two adults and two children, the threshold was $24,858.

Statewide last year, nearly four in five working-age people in poverty were employed, the census reported. Two in three poor adults had a high school education or higher.

U.S. average tariff rates

From 1821 to 2016

RELATED: Can Southern California’s electric bike companies survive Trump’s tariffs?

Opinions on tariffs

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on why the U.S. hiked tariffs on Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent: “The Trump Administration continues to urge China to stop its unfair practices, open its market and engage in true market competition. We have been very clear about the specific changes China should undertake. Regrettably, instead of changing its harmful behavior, China has illegally retaliated against U.S. workers, farmers, ranchers and businesses.”

Public opinion: A Pew Research Center survey, conducted July 11-15 among 1,007 adults, finds that attitudes toward the tariffs are deeply polarized.

Peter Navarro, the White House Director of National Trade Council and former UCI professor, recently wrote that the tariffs will bring hope and prosperity back to steelworkers in the U.S.

U.S. and China trade balance

Top three nations for U.S. exports, with percentage of total, 2017:

• 1. Canada, 18.3%
• 2. Mexico, 15.7%
• 3. China, 8.4%

Top three nations for U.S. imports, 2017:

• 1. China, 21.6%
• 2. Mexico, 13.4%
• 3. Canada, 12.8%

You can see a breakdown of trade between every nation at the World Integrated Trade Solution. The most current set of data is from 2016.

U.S. tariff rankings

Before August 2018, U.S. tariffs were among the lowest in the world. These World Trade Organization rankings in 2017 are based on 2016 data. Note: Ranking includes 137 individual countries and territories plus the European Union, which has a common tariff structure for its 28 member states.

The CEO of Pedego Electric Bikes, based in Fountain Valley, had figured the new 25 percent tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese imports would cost him $1 million by the end of the year.

No small sum for a company whose $18.6 million in revenue last year mostly depended on three factories outside Shanghai.

So is DiCostanzo moving his manufacturing to the United States? Is he bringing back jobs and helping to slash the nation’s trade deficit — Trump’s oft-touted goals?

“Absolutely not — there’s no way,” said the effervescent 61-year-old entrepreneur who, as it happens, is a Trump supporter.

Next month Pedego, a leading electric bike seller with 140 branded stores in 33 states and hundreds of independent distributors, plans to open a new factory in tariff-free Vietnam. And it expects to raise the average price of its e-bikes by $300 — about 8 percent — to absorb the cost of adjusting its supply chain.

“Anyone who says they’re making electric bikes in the U.S. is lying,” DiCostanzo asserted. “The reality is not even a spoke is made in this country. … We wouldn’t exist without a global supply chain.”

A booming $17 billion global industry with a growing California presence, e-bikes offer a case study of the fallout from Trump’s tense trade war with China. While high tariffs could help some American factories by making foreign products more expensive, they are already hurting many U.S. companies — from steel pipe manufacturers to solar panel installers, all of which depend on imports to make a profit.

RELATED: A look at U.S. tariffs in the past and where we are headed with China

Electric bikes — basically, bicycles with rechargeable motors attached — are expensive, ranging from about $1,000 for basic models to $10,000 for luxury versions. But they are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. bicycle market, thanks to an aging boomer population with leisure time for recreation and the need for an optional assist up challenging hills.

High tariffs could slow that growth. Ninety percent of the estimated 263,000 electric bicycles sold in the U.S. last year were made in China, with the remainder sourced from Taiwan and Vietnam. From crowd-funded entrepreneurs to established firms, virtually all the nation’s roughly 300 e-bike companies are feeling the pain.

The impact in Southern California, with its balmy weather and fitness ethos, is especially stark. Some 40 e-bike companies are located in the Los Angeles region, the highest concentration in the nation, according to Ed Benjamin, chairman of the Florida-based Light Electric Vehicle Association.

“Bikes are the healthiest, most efficient form of transportation,” said Michael Fishman, president of Pure Cycles, an 8-year old Burbank company that added e-bikes to its 10-model line last year. “And e-bikes are the way to get more people on bikes.”

Sourcing from China, Pure Cycles has been selling 20,000 standard bikes a year, but in just 18 months, its two electric models have come to account for a quarter of its revenues. On Aug. 23, the day Trump’s 25 percent tariff took effect, the company felt obliged to raise its e-bike price to $2,499 from $1,999.

“This is a huge bummer for consumers,” Fishman said. “It will price people out of this great new category. E-bikes are never going to hit the mainstream with this tariff.”

Nor will the tariffs boost American jobs “because no one manufactures bikes in the U.S.,” he added. “We are getting quotes from Vietnam and Taiwan, but a manufacturing relationship is a huge part of business. China makes the highest quality bikes at the best price.”

Benjamin calls electric bikes “the biggest transportation industry you never heard of. Every day, 260 million people ride electric bikes to work — 250 million of them in China,” he said. In Europe, 10 million e-bikes are in operation. Just a million have been sold in the U.S., but he predicts that by 2030, they could account for half the bicycles in the world.

In Fountain Valley, DiCostanzo, dressed in an open-collar shirt, shorts, sneakers and an Apple watch, bounded through Pedego’s warehouse showing off commuter bikes, beach cruisers, mountain bikes, even a tandem. “We came out with purple this year,” he said. “And raspberry. One really hot color is greige — a blend of gray and beige.”

He whipped out his cell phone to show a snapshot of Martha Stewart with the Pedego she just bought in Bar Harbor, Maine. A company catalog features a testimonial from Star Trek actor William Shatner whose extended family owns 16 Pedegos.

When the Trump administration proposed the tariffs in June, DiCostanzo quickly turbo-charged orders from his Chinese factories, doubling his inventory to 4,000 e-bikes, now stacked high to the ceiling in cardboard boxes. That will tide the company over until the Vietnam factory is fully operational.

Only three final containers, arriving from China through the Port of Long Beach in the days after Aug. 23, were slapped with duties: $150,000 worth.

In the warehouse, several assembly workers were busy unpacking the Chinese bikes which arrive with detached handlebars, front wheels and pedals.

“We fully assemble and test ride them after dialing in the brakes, shifters and properly inflating the tires,” said DiCostanzo, who employs 42 at the Fountain Valley facility. “Our customers get choices of seats, tires, hand grips and options like front suspension forks. We make those changes at the time of final assembly.”

The complexity of the supply chain for even a small company such as Pedego illustrates why tariffs aimed at China may fall short of their goal.

After designing and building prototypes of its bikes in Fountain Valley, Pedego tells its factories what kind of attributes it wants for 50-plus parts — rust-resistant chains, for instance. But the origin of those components can be murky.

“When people say ‘manufactured in China, or Vietnam, or Taiwan,’ you have to drill down,” DiCostanzo said.

“Our tires are from Schwalbe, a German company, and they are stamped ‘Made in Indonesia’ but the rubber comes from Malaysia. Our brakes are from a Chicago company called SRAM, but they’re made either in China or Taiwan.

“We can make a bike in Taiwan, and buy a motor from Shimano, a Japanese company. But its cells come from Panasonic, a Korean company, and are made in Singapore for a battery pack processed in China. And the batteries’ lithium may have come from Brazil.”

Given China’s extensive bike parts infrastructure, built up over decades, a factory now exporting “Made in Vietnam” e-bikes to the U.S. could be still be sourcing most components from China.

“The trick is not to assemble in China,” DiCostanzo said.

Still, with 5 percent of its sales in Europe and hopes of growing its European market, Pedego plans to obtain most of its future parts from outside China. That’s because the European Union, which slapped hefty anti-dumping penalties on China this year, sets a 60 percent cap on Chinese parts.

As of now, the U.S. has not adopted a similar rule “but we plan to minimize the parts made in China in case that changes,” DiCostanzo said.

The threat of stiffer European duties was what spurred Pedego to begin looking for a Vietnam factory to handle its European exports even before U.S. tariffs were proposed. “But we weren’t planning to accelerate the process,” DiCostanzo said. “We hoped we could fight it.”

The August duties on Chinese-made e-bikes and 278 other categories of goods from tractors to plastic tubes to speedometers, followed earlier Trump administration tariff rounds on steel and aluminum, and on $34 billion of other Chinese goods, prompting tit-for-tat tariffs by China on U.S. exports.

How were e-bikes chosen for the $16 billion round in August? The U.S. Trade Representative’s office has offered no specifics. Its news release states all the tariffs resulted from an “exhaustive” investigation and a “response to China’s unfair trade practices related to the forced transfer of American technology and intellectual property.”

On July 23, DiCostanzo had traveled to Washington, D.C., to testify before a U.S. Trade Representative panel, along with an attorney from Trek Bicycle Corp., a large Wisconsin importer. They each had five minutes to make their case.

DiCostanzo found the agency panelists to be confused. “They asked me, ‘Aren’t you afraid of the Chinese stealing intellectual property?’ My response was: ‘Absolutely not.’ They said ‘Why not?’ I said, ‘Because we don’t have any!’”

“So they turned to the guy next to me, and he said, ‘I’m not aware of a single patent on electric bikes.’ If they were targeting items for intellectual property, they picked the wrong people.’”

Trump vigorously defends the tariff offensive, announcing that the next round of duties will target $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, amounting to about half of Chinese imports. As it happens, those products include standard bicycles, too.

“Tariffs will make our country much richer than it is today,” Trump tweeted Aug. 4. “Only fools would disagree. We are using them to negotiate fair trade deals and, if countries are still unwilling to negotiate, they will pay us vast sums of money in the form of Tariffs.”

The following day he added, “Tariffs are working big time. Every country on earth wants to take wealth out of the U.S., always to our detriment. I say, as they come, Tax them. If they don’t want to be taxed, let them make or build the product in the U.S.”

E-bike companies say they would like nothing better than to manufacture in the U.S. But, said DiCostanzo, “Even if we could make them here, our $3,000 bike would probably cost $10,000.

“For instance,” he added, “we’d have to spend millions of dollars just on a paint booth to absorb contaminants. Why do you think Apple, a U.S. company, makes its phones in China? China doesn’t have the same compliance rules.”

Moreover, DiCostanzo’s Chinese factory workers earn about $3 an hour, he said, and in Vietnam, the wages are even lower.

Wouldn’t consumers be more likely to buy an e-bike labeled “Made in the USA?”

“That’s been tested a gazillion times,” he replied. “In the end, it’s their pocketbook that matters. Go to Costco, Target, Walmart — almost everything they sell, other than food, comes from China.”

DiCostanzo voted for Trump and still supports him. “I’m not saying I like him personally,” he added. “But I’ve always maintained that business people should be in Washington, not career politicians who don’t really understand business.”

And how has that worked out for the e-bike business?

Tariffs are being applied “indiscriminately,” DiCostanzo acknowledged, adding that he worries “if we had an all-out trade war with China right now, almost every retailer in this country would see a lot of their business dry up.

“You would walk down the aisles and everything would cost twice the price as before. People could lose their jobs. It could spiral into a depression.”

Still, he said, “The jury is still out” on the administration’s overall trade policy. “The president’s trade experts want to flush out the inequalities in the tariff system worldwide. So they have drawn a line in the sand. China should honor our laws and our intellectual property.”

Tariffs should be applied gradually, he suggested, adding, “The administration hasn’t tariffed everything.”

A new UC Berkeley Labor Center study defines low-wage workers as those earning less than two-thirds of the median full-time wage in California.

In 2017, this means workers making less than $14.35 per hour are considered low-wage workers. California’s minimum wage is $11 an hour for employers of 26 workers or more, and $10.50 for smaller employers. About 32 percent of California workers earned less than $14.35 an hour in 2017, which is about 4.9 million workers.

In 2019, the wage floor will rise to $12 an hour for larger employers and $11 for smaller employers. By 2022, it will grow to $15 an hour for larger employers and for smaller employers by 2023.

The study limited the analysis to California workers, ages 18-64, who were not self-employed.

Stagnant wages

Low-wage workers have not seen their earnings increase in California (after adjusting for inflation) while high-wage workers have seen their earnings rise sharply.

Low wage by industry

By industries for 2016, with percentages rounded up:

Where the low-wage workers are

Worker profile

Note: Figures may not add up to 100 percent due to rounding

The hotels, the Ramada Plaza Anaheim and Hotel Indigo Anaheim, are owned through two private companies, New Century Enterprises LLC and Union Investments USA LLC. They are controlled by Stephen C. Hsu, president, and Danny Li, vice-president,  according to U.S. Labor Department officials and hotel employees.

The hotels “failed to pay employees overtime for hours worked beyond 40 hours per week during some pay periods,” according to a labor department news release on Friday, Aug. 24. “Investigators also found the hotels failed to pay housekeepers for work they performed off-the-clock.

“The investigation found these employees punched out at the end of their scheduled shifts, but returned to work to complete unfinished tasks such as cleaning remaining guest rooms, stocking their cleaning carts, and emptying their trash bins.”

Investigators also cited the hotels for failing to maintain accurate payroll records.

“These two investigations help ensure…that employers compete on a fair-and-level playing field,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Rodolfo Cortez. “Employers must pay employees for all hours that they work.

Hsu and Li did not immediately respond to emails or phone messages left at their offices at the Hotel Indigo and the Ramada Plaza, which was recently rebranded as the Wyndham Garden Anaheim after a $3 million renovation.

The two hotels, on West Katella avenue near Disneyland, cater to theme park visitors.

Employers who discover overtime or minimum wage violations may self-report and resolve those violations without litigation through the PAID program. Information is also available at www.dol.gov/whd including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by WHD.

“We regularly evaluate the market,” Disneyland spokeswoman Suzi Brown wrote in an email. “The dynamics in the SoCal market warrant the increase. They normally get an increase at that time of year (merit) and the planned increase is inclusive of that, plus market.”

Disney had raised the minimum for non-union workers to $13.90 from $11 an hour in July. The new increase amounts to a 36 percent jump in six months.

About 7,000 of Disney’s 30,000 employees are not represented by unions, including some 300 at the Walt Disney Travel Company Reservations Call Center, as well as photographers who work across the park, administrative support workers in Disney office buildings, employees at the Partners Federal Credit Union and at the company’s workforce management division, a branch of payroll.

Character actors, workers who dress like Disney’s animated figures, are non-unionized too, as are employees who work in front desk and concierge roles at Disney hotels.

Brown declined to say how many of the 7,000 non-union employees work hourly jobs, or how many currently earn less than $15.75.

Disneyland, the county’s largest employer, has been under public pressure for months to raise pay with growing attention on Orange County’s high cost of living. The company’s entry-level wage was pegged to $11 an hour — the minimum for California — although research shows it takes a wage of $28 an hour to afford a median-priced, one-bedroom apartment in the county.

In a February survey by researchers at Occidental College and the Los Angeles-based Economic Roundtable, commissioned by a dozen Disney unions, 74 percent of Disney workers said they could not afford basic necessities and 11 percent said they had been homeless or living in their cars over the previous two years.

Disney dismissed the report as “unscientific,” but it fueled public protests by unions seeking higher pay, as well as a national campaign by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders who excoriated Disney and CEO Robert Iger for fostering poverty and inequality.

Disney workers gathered enough signatures to place an initiative on the November Anaheim ballot to raise minimum pay to $15 an hour in January and $18 an hour by 2022, for companies that accept city tax breaks. Disney and the Wincome Group gained $550 million in tax breaks in 2016 to build new luxury hotels.

Last month, Disneyland agreed to raise the hourly minimum pay of more than 8,600 workers to $15 in January as part of a new contract with unions representing ride operators, ticket takers, retail sales clerks, janitors and parking attendants among others.

That left the minimum wage for several other unions, including Unite Here, the hotel workers’ union, and Workers United Local 50, which represents culinary workers, at $11 an hour. Unite Here and Disney remain engaged in contentious negotiations, while Local 50’s contract is not yet up for renewal.

But last month’s boost to $15 for four unions meant many of Disney’s non-union workers would have made less than some union workers in January — a situation which the company may have found to be untenable.

“Whenever the unions get something good, the company tends to bump up the non-union workers as well because  it keeps them from wanting to unionize,” said Artemis Bell, a Disneyland janitor who served as an SEIU United Service Workers West contract negotiator. “They essentially ride our coattails.”

Market forces are also at work: the county’s low unemployment, at 3.3 percent last month, is shrinking the available pool of workers, creating the conditions for wage competition among companies.

The National Union of Healthcare Workers, which won a vote last year to represent licensed vocational nurses (LVNs), respiratory therapists and other facility staff, said the Anaheim workers are paid less than those at other hospitals owned by its corporate parent, Ontario-based Prime Healthcare.

According to the union, which is engaged in collective bargaining with the hospital, “the pay gap is so severe that management’s offer to boost some salaries by as much as 16 percent over three years would still leave starting nurses making nearly $4 an hour less than their counterparts at Prime Healthcare’s nearby Garden Grove Medical Center.

“Respiratory therapists would start out making $8 less under management’s offer,” it added.

Prime Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest hospital systems, and its CEO Prem Reddy agreed last week to pay $65 million to settle federal charges that 14 of its California hospitals, including West Anaheim, submitted false claims to Medicare.

According to federal prosecutors, the hospitals admitted patients who required only less costly outpatient care. They also billed for more expensive diagnoses than necessary, a practice known as up-coding.

The for-profit hospital chain denied the charges but said it agreed to settle the case to avoid further litigation.

Prime Healthcare spokeswoman Elizabeth Nikels said the Anaheim hospital is “offering wage increases that are significantly higher than the national average.

“The strike will not impact patient care or the daily operations at the hospital,” she wrote in an email, adding that staff from neighboring Prime Healthcare hospitals will fill in for absent workers.

Labor strife has hit the West Anaheim hospital before. The hospital’s registered nurses voted last year to join the California Nurses Association after discontent over pay and benefits led to an exodus of experienced staff.

Pay levels at West Anaheim for LVNs and technicians can be explained by the lack of representation until now, according to NUHW spokesman Matthew Artz. “This will be the first contract,” he said. “That’s why they are underpaid compared to union workers at other Prime hospitals.”

Unionized Prime Healthcare hospitals include Garden Grove Medical Center, Encino Hospital Medical Center and Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood.

Last year, the 219-bed Anaheim hospital posted a $28.4 million operating profit. Its profit was double the average among 11 Prime hospitals in Southern California, and the third highest among them, according to the facilities’ financial statements.

Several Orange County Democratic congressional candidates, including Katie Porter, Mike Levin and Gil Cisneros, are scheduled to speak at a union rally at noon Thursday outside the hospital at 3033 West Orange Ave., Anaheim.

At a Los Angeles news conference Wednesday, Aug. 1, Anna Park, regional attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, outlined the agency’s lawsuit against the company and spoke in graphic terms of the treatment of some 44 customer service workers at Alorica call centers in Fresno and Clovis.

More plaintiffs will be added to the settlement as they come forward, she said, with the agency launching an 800 number for victims.

“A manager peered down women’s tops to see their breasts,” Park said. “A team manager asked a female employee to (perform oral sex). In another instance, a male worker exposed himself. Women complained to the EEOC that they were subjected to unwanted touching of their breasts and buttocks.”

Those who complained were “terminated or felt compelled to resign. Other women felt unsafe,” she added.

The agency also identified several male workers who were subjected to harassment, with female co-workers talking about sex and “asking what position they liked,” Park said.

Tania King, Alorica’s chief employee experience and legal officer, also spoke at the news conference, saying the firm “disputes the allegations in the complaint based on our internal investigations and believes the company would have been vindicated had we decided to litigate.

“We also do not believe the complaint reflects the culture and leadership that works tirelessly to provide an inclusive, respectful work environment for all. Nevertheless, we …agreed to the settlement because we believe it allows the company to focus its time and resources on directly enhancing employee compliance programs rather than on protracted litigation.”

Alorica, a privately-owned firm with $2.2 billion in revenue last year, has more than 100,000 employees in 15 countries. According to its website, 70 percent of its business is with Fortune 500 companies in finance, communications, healthcare, retail and technology.

In her statement, King emphasized that the company, led by Chairman and CEO Andy Lee, a Chinese-American, “is a minority-owned … family-founded and family-run company.”

The EEOC lawsuit was filed in September 2017. Alorica quickly entered into settlement talks without submitting court documents to defend the company.

At the news conference, two women who worked at Alorica’s 1,150-worker call center in Fresno described the harassment they said they suffered.

Chasity La Mattina, who was 20 when she went to work as an Alorica customer service representative in 2015, broke down in tears.

According to La Mattina, now 23, a team leader manager “walked by me and swiped his open palm against my butt and swiped his hand down. He took his bottle of soda and rubbed it against his genitals then rubbed it on my rib area and said in a low voice, ‘This is what you need, huh?’ ”

She added, “I was scared.”

Linda Strong was 21 when she began working at the call center in 2012. Two years later, the mother of two was promoted to “team manager,” making $12 an hour and overseeing 18 other workers.

Strong said she was harassed by two supervisors and another team leader.

“My supervisor talked about his favorite sex position,” she said.”He said he liked my butt. He would rub my back up and down…

“He said that my chest looked nice and that it must be the bra I was wearing and commented to another employee that I have ‘a nice ass.’ ”

Another team leader told her she would “end up in a wheelchair” after having sex with him, she said. “It was in front of other co-workers.”

“I was scared and overwhelmed,” she added after the news conference, but she was afraid speaking up would mean losing her job. “My paycheck was paying the rent and utilities for my family. My fiancé wasn’t making as much.”

When Strong complained to a human resources official, she said she was offered two weeks of unpaid leave and told the company would investigate. When she returned from the leave, she found no one had been fired and “everyone knew about it. The supervisor and his friends would walk by and glare at me.”

Finally, she went to the site manager, Alorica’s top on-site official. “He interrupted me and told me he did not want to hear anything incriminating about his assistant directors because they perform for him.”

That is when Strong quit, she said. In an unemployment brochure, she noticed a reference to the EEOC and sexual harassment and made her way to the agency’s Fresno office.

Alorica “is all about statistics,” she said.”The better the stats, the more money they make. Stats on surveys from the phone calls. Stats on the number of escalated calls (to supervisors).”

In a three-year decree, the federal district court ordered Alorica to conduct extensive audits and sexual harassment training for all employees. It also ordered an EEOC monitor to conduct audits nationwide, not just in California, “to ensure there are no additional issues and to address them swiftly,” Park said.

Alorica workers who believe they are impacted are “encouraged to come forward,” she added. “They can call 855-725-4456.”

“Sex harassment has garnered a lot of attention with the #MeToo movement,” Park said. “To the EEOC, sadly, harassment cases are not new but have been a persistent problem for a very long time.”

The three-year agreement, approved by members of four resort unions late Thursday, follows months of protests over low pay, the filing of an Anaheim living wage ballot initiative, and widespread publicity in the U.S. and overseas depicting workers at “The Happiest Place on Earth” as mired in poverty.

The contract immediately boosts those workers’ minimum pay to $13.25 an hour from $11, followed by the jump to $15 next year. California’s legal wage floor for large companies is set to rise to $15 an hour in 2022.

“The cost of living in Orange County is incredibly high,” Josh D’Amaro, president of the Disneyland Resort, wrote in an email. “There are broad societal issues that communities are grappling with and no one company or entity alone can solve them.

“But we want to do our part. The resort is taking a leadership position on wages in O.C., and we are committed to providing not just an exceptional employment experience, but real, meaningful increases in pay as well.”

Union leaders’ assessment was more muted. “We are pleased this is a step in the right direction,” said Andrea Zinder, secretary-treasurer of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 324 and a leader of the negotiations.

“Disney is a very wealthy company that had not been paying a fair wage for a long time. And Disney’s profits come from the image that these hard-working employees portray day in and day out. You still can’t live comfortably in Los Angeles or Orange County on $15 an hour.”

Disney’s final offer, after months of stalled bargaining, came on the eve of a four-day hunger strike and a mock homeless shantytown that unions had planned to erect across from the theme park, highlighting allegations of worker poverty.

The protest, called off after Disneyland’s offer, would have overlapped with The Walt Disney Company’s shareholder vote Friday on its $71.3 billion acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets. According to Bloomberg, Disney CEO Robert Iger stands to earn $162.5 million in stock and cash bonuses in 2018 thanks to the deal.

Besides the UFCW, employees covered by the contract belong to the Teamsters, the Service Workers International Union-United Service Workers West and the Bakery, Confectioners, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers. They account for less than half of the resort’s 23,000 organized workers.

The contract does not affect minimum pay at Disneyland’s other unions where thousands still make less than $15 an hour. Nor does it boost the hourly wages of non-union members among the resort’s 30,000 employees.

After reaching $15 an hour next year, workers covered by Thursday’s contract would get a 3 percent hike in 2020, raising their final pay to $15.45. More experienced employees currently making above $15 would be limited to a 3 percent annual hike — a level which caused many of them to vote against the contract for shortchanging them in comparison to newer employees.

Denise Anderson, 56, joined Disney 31 years ago and earns $19.90 an hour purchasing supplies for the costume department. She will get an annual raise of 60 cents an hour.

“Long-term cast members are disappointed,” she said. “Those who’ve been loyal workers for 20, 30 and even 40 years don’t seem to count. When I started at Disney, you could work there and buy a home and put your kids through school on what you earned. Now the management is all about making money.”

But the new $15 floor does not just benefit new workers. Artemis Bell, a 32-year-old night custodian who was a member of the bargaining committee, has worked eight years at Disney. She earns $11.86 an hour.

“In January, I’ll make an extra $150 a week,” she said. “This will take some of the stress off in paying my bills. In the past, I’ve had to take out payday loans in an emergency, like when a roommate moves out without paying their part of the rent.”

Union leaders plan to push ahead with an initiative set for Anaheim’s November ballot to raise minimum wages to $18 an hour by 2022 at companies that have received multi-million dollar tax breaks from the city.

The two targeted companies, Disney and hotel developer Wincome Group, are fighting back under the aegis of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce. They are already running social media ads calling the initiative a “job-killer” and can be expected to invest considerable sums between now and November.

Dan Flaming, president of the Economic Roundtable, a Los Angeles nonprofit that co-authored a February report on Disney wages for a coalition of the resort unions, called the contract “a big step forward for workers that have been banging their heads against a brick wall for years.”

But he added, “It doesn’t take workers to where they need to be. Our data shows an average of $23 an hour is needed for Disney workers to afford the basic necessities of life. And that includes many households where both adults are working.”

Twelve of Disney’s unions commissioned the report, co-authored by researchers at Occidental College. Some 5000 workers responded to the report’s survey, documenting for the first time wage levels and demographic data that the resort had previously refused to disclose.

In the survey, 74 percent of workers said they could not afford basic necessities and 11 percent said they had been homeless or living in their cars over the previous two years.

Disney called the report unscientific and inaccurate. But the hashtag #StopDisneyPoverty took off across social media where Disney workers took to telling hardship stories. News of the death of a long-time Disneyland custodial worker who was living in her car, and whose body was not discovered for 20 days, did not help the resort’s reputation.

In recent months, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and former Presidential candidate, mounted a campaign against Disney for low wages, hosting a rally in Anaheim and flailing the company and CEO Iger in press releases and social media.

But D’Amaro, the resort president, contended, “We’ve had a long and positive relationship with our unions. While there can be natural tension, what’s important is that we’ve come together to deliver a great contract for our cast that will get more money in their pockets immediately.”

Anaheim Chamber President Todd Ament said the new contract “shows what happens when business and labor sit down constructively…This shows that the destructive living wage initiative on the ballot in Anaheim, which benefits very few workers but causes great harm across all of Anaheim, is not needed.”

Fullerton Pacific Interiors shortchanged employees on 26 hotel, recreation and casino projects across Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties from 2014 to 2016.

Industry giants R.D. Olson Construction of Irvine and Tarzana’s Sinanian Development were among those employing the Fullerton firm for the projects, which included multimillion-dollar apartment buildings and hotels for Marriott, Hyatt, Homewood Suites by Hilton and the Bicycle Club casino in Bell Gardens.

Workers were paid a daily rate that failed to compensate them for overtime, according to labor officials. Workers were allowed a 30-minute meal period but did not receive rest breaks. Twenty-eight workers were paid below the state’s minimum wage, which ranged from $9 to $10 during the period.

“Unscrupulous contractors attempt to obscure their wage theft by paying workers a flat rate rather than for all hours worked,” said Labor Commissioner Julie A. Su in a statement. “But a daily or other flat-rate system does not take the place of minimum wage and overtime obligations.”

The $1,964,679 citation includes $1,892,279 payable to the workers and $72,400 in civil penalties.

Alberto Mordoki, operations manager for Fullerton Pacific Interiors, said in an interview the firm disputes the charges. “I don’t know much about the law,” he said, but asserted the workers got rest periods and were paid overtime and legal wages.

The company, which lists his daughter Jacqueline Mordoki as president and CEO and his son Charlie Chavez Mordoki as “Responsible Managing Officer,” and says on its website it has over 40 employees, “doesn’t make that much money,” he said. “No way we can pay that ($2 million).”

The violations were brought to the attention of the labor commissioner by the Los Angeles-based Carpenters/Contractors Cooperation Committee, a labor-management group that monitors compliance with labor, tax, insurance and safety laws and helps workers recover back wages.

In a press release, the group said it had warned Olson, Sinanian and others of the Mordokis’ “shady practices, including cash pay” as well as informing them “of the prior record of civil and criminal activity on the part of the head of Fullerton Pacific. But they chose to ignore this.”

In 2009, Mordoki and his wife, Mirella Mordoki, were debarred by the state labor commissioner from working on public construction projects for three years after failing to pay legal wages to workers. Their contracting license was revoked.

In 2007, he was convicted of workers compensation fraud and sentenced to two years in prison.

In another case in 2005, Alberto and Mirella Mordoki both pled guilty to bank fraud for using phony identities to apply for loans that went into default, resulting in lender losses of thousands of dollars.

In Tuesday’s interview, Mordoki acknowledged he had been sentenced to prison for his activities but said the sentence was suspended. “That was a long time ago,” he said.

Joseph Cervantes, senior executive vice president of operations for R.D. Olson Construction, said he would have no immediate comment on the Fullerton subcontractor. A spokeswoman for Sinanian said the company would examine the charges before responding.

A new California law, AB 1701, took effect in January holding general contractors jointly liable for their subcontractor employees’ unpaid wages.

“This law is a powerful tool … especially in the residential mixed-use industry where we see wage theft and tax fraud practices.” said David Kersh, executive director of the cooperation committee. “If general contractors realize they have skin in the game, they will … hopefully take steps to ensure they work with responsible law-abiding subcontractors.”

The projects cited Tuesday ranged across Southern California — in Irvine, Huntington Beach, Ladera Ranch, Glendale, Tarzana, Culver City, Hawthorne, Loma Linda and Chino, among other cities.