Deal reached to take California minimum wage to $15 an hour
ASSOCIATED PRESS
In this Tuesday, July 21, 2015 file photo, workers held a rally in Los Angeles in support of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors’ proposed minimum wage ordinance.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. >> California legislators and labor unions on Saturday reached an agreement that will take the state’s minimum wage from $10 to $15 an hour, a state senator said, a move that would make for the largest statewide minimum in the nation by far.
Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, told The Associated Press the proposal would go before the Legislature as part of his minimum-wage bill that stalled last year.
Leno said the deal would avoid taking the issue to the ballot. One union-backed initiative has already qualified for the ballot, and a second, competing measure is also trying to qualify.
“This is an issue I’ve been working on for many years,” Leno said. “The governor and stakeholders have all been negotiating earnestly and in good faith for some time.”
Leno did not confirm specifics of the agreement, but most proposals have the wage increasing about a dollar per year until it reaches $15 per hour.
The Los Angeles Times, which first reported the deal, said the wage would rise to $10.50 in 2017, to $11 an hour in 2018, and one dollar per year to take it to $15 by 2022. Businesses with fewer than 25 employees would have an extra year to comply.
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At $10 an hour, California already has one of the highest minimum wages in the nation along with Massachusetts. Only Washington, D.C., at $10.50 per hour is higher. The hike to $15 would make it the highest statewide wage in the nation by far, though raises are in the works in other states that might change by the time the plateau is reached in 2022.
Some states have passed higher minimums for government employees and state-contracted workers, and some cities including Seattle have already passed $15 an hour increases.
And Oregon officials approved a law earlier this month that will increase that state’s minimum wage to nearly $15 in urban areas over the next six years.
California union leaders, however, said they would not immediately dispense with planned ballot measures.
Sean Wherley, a spokesman for SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, confirmed that his group was involved in the negotiations. But he said the group will continue pushing ahead with its initiative that has already qualified for the ballot.
“Ours is on the ballot. We want to be certain of what all this is,” Wherley said. “We are going ahead with it. If some agreement is signed into law, then our executive board would decide what to do. They would only make that decision after any agreement is signed into law.”
The union proposal that has already qualified for the ballot calls for reaching the $15 mark by 2021. The second proposed measure would reach $15 by 2020. Businesses and Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown have said such a steep wage increase would be incredibly costly.
A spokesman for Brown, Evan Westrup, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kevin Liao, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount, declined to comment.
23 responses to “Deal reached to take California minimum wage to $15 an hour”
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Let’s just raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour and be done with it. Erase the poverty line, swell the ranks of the middle class, and every (wo)man a queen/king.
It seems (no shock) that you haven’t read any of the economic reasoning behind the hourly wage proposal. “I love the poorly educated!” Go Trump!
Evidently you haven’t read the abundant economic studies on the negative affects of reckless minimum wage increases.
A pathological lack of humor is a pitiable state.
Klastri, you have a regrettable and perhaps pathological lack of humor. Is the word “sociopath” anywhere in your lexicon?
Hawaii with probably the highest cost of living in the country is not even at $10.00 hr. The democratic majority that has controlled this state for the last fifty years should be ashamed of themselves. They don’t represent the people anymore, they work for special interests that fill their campaign bank accounts and employ their family and friends.
As the minimum wage goes up, so does the cost of everything we buy. That is how businesses cover the increase in labor cost. Thus, when the minimum wage reaches $15 an hour, the buying power of those earning the new minimum wage will be no different than it is today. It is basic economics which Democrats do not understand.
Kind of true. Everyone will make more money but businesses will hire less and smaller business will go down or will be afraid to start up. So better pay for those working but more unemployment.
But we’ll all feel better about ourselves.
Except that you have apparently learned absolutely nothing from the decades of experience in minimum wage law enforcement. “I love the poorly educated!” Go Trump!
Klastri, the Omnipotent know-it-all, I was waiting for you to say something about my comment as you often do. Please enlighten me and other readers with what you have learned from your decades of experience in minimum wage law enforcement, whatever that means.
If you don’t like the wage don’t take the job. Pretty simple why don’t democrats understand that?
because it’s not their (democrats) money – someone will have to pay for the increase in the cost of doing business, namely the consumers in California.
After Seattle bureaucrats raised the minimum wage to $15, they were shocked to see the number of employed workers decline. What happened they asked?
What happened is business owners responded by cutting jobs to save money. Can’t make a profit if you keep the same number of employees and raise their pay to $15 an hour.
Many businesses are already working to install self service kiosks, increase automation so they can cut back on staff. Expect self service, fewer workers to be the new norm with more people out of work.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-future-of-the-machine-worker-is-here-2016-3
Your comment about Seattle might be interesting, except that you’re lying. Seattle / Everett unemployment has dropped since the new wage ordinance took effect. Do you think that lying helps your case?
Let’s examine the data. Seattle’s minimum wage ordinance became effective April 1st of last year. In April 2015 Everett’s unemployment rate was 4%. In December 2015 it was 5.5%. In January 2016 it was 6.3% which is the latest figure I could find.
http://www.homefacts.com/unemployment/Washington/Snohomish-County/Everett.html
Despite these higher unemployment rates, even if one were to give klastri the benefit of the doubt, his claim would still be subject to scrutiny since Everett is a Boeing town. The largest employer in Everett and the surrounding community is Boeing which is certainly not your typical minimum wage employer/business. I don’t know where klastri gets his data from but one could say that klastri’s claim is not only factually incorrect but statistically biased as well.
Klastri, is quick to call people liars and to cite data which apparently is taken from the orifice in his back side. When you challenge his (or her) absurd comments with factual information, as you have done, he will not reply.
The UNIONS are behind this pay raise. If their unionized employees make more, the unions will ultimately profit due to higher union dues.
Small businesses will be hit with higher wages which ultimately means lower employee numbers on the payroll. Due to the higher costs they will have to increase rates to their customers in order to offset the added costs of doing business.
Businesses will feel the grunt and there will be a devastating effect on the whole economy.
Senators, at times try to work in the best interest of the people not realizing the impact that their decision can cause.
T
Never, ever, ever, trust an utterly incompetent, elected bureaucrat to do what is right. Lap dog for hire.
California is really going downhill fast, drought, recession, government out of control spending, ever higher taxes and now ridiculous minimum wage. Why are the corrupt Democrats pushing for this? By increasing the minimum wage, the poor will pay more taxes and they hope this will increase tax revenue. What really happens is that they hurt the poor by increasing unemployment for the low wage worker. Just don’t bring this to Hawaii, wait, they already have.
Need to raise wages so people can afford more tattoos.
When the minimum wage is raised to $15 it sets a series of events that will have an immense effect on the local economy and even further. As these workers get their wages increased the businesses that employ them will now have a higher cost of doing business. In order to offset this sudden increase they will have to make changes to their way of doing business and/or go down. One obvious method is to release workers to make up for the increased cost. Another is to increase prices on their products or services. Or they can do both. Multiply this by all the businesses that employ minimum wage workers and you have a very big impact. Fast food is not the only business that employ minimum wage workers. Many of these businesses supply the raw materials to other businesses. Businesses that purchase these raw materials for their own products then have to raise their prices themselves. The result is that the price of food at the grocery store goes up such as the price of milk. Consumers then feel the pinch and their unions will push for their own wage increase as their money is now no longer worth how much it did. Then there is the fact that inexperienced workers such as teenagers are now making almost or just as much as experienced workers many of whom invested in a college education. So, of course they want a raise not just because they feel they are now not being paid fairly especially when they compare their wage with inexperienced high school kids. As these specialized workers get their raise so do their supervisors and managers and CEO’s. So, everyone got a raise and now the money is now not worth how much it used to. The only difference now is that the number of unemployed has gone up and the cost of your food is now higher as oftentimes many did not get a raise. This concept is really simplified but you get the idea.
End of story? A flood of businesses to Texas. Oh, wait. That’s already happening.