California enacts highest statewide minimum wage in U.S.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gov. Jerry Brown was hugged by Holly Dias, a Burger King employee who praised Brown’s announcement of proposed legislation to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2022, during a March 28 news conference in Sacramento, Calif.
LOS ANGELES » Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law today giving California the nation’s highest statewide minimum wage of $15 an hour by 2022.
That and a similar effort in New York mark the most ambitious moves yet to close the national divide between rich and poor. Experts say other states may follow, given Congress’ reluctance to act despite entreaties from President Barack Obama.
“This is about economic justice. It’s about people. It’s about creating a little, tiny amount of balance in a system that every day becomes more unbalanced,” Brown said before signing the bill at the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles.
Republicans and business groups warn that the move could cost thousands of jobs, while a legislative analysis puts the ultimate cost to taxpayers at $3.6 billion a year in higher pay for government employees.
A $15 base wage will have “devastating impacts on small businesses in California,” Tom Scott, executive director of the state branch of the National Federation of Independent Business, said in a statement. “Ignoring the voices and concerns of the vast majority of job creators in this state is deeply concerning and illustrates why many feel Sacramento is broken.”
Democrats who control the Legislature approved the compromise legislation Thursday, days after the agreement was announced. The measure passed with no Republican support.
The bill will bump the state’s $10 hourly minimum by 50 cents next year and to $11 in 2018.
Hourly $1 raises will then come every January until 2022, unless the governor imposes a delay during an economic recession. Businesses with 25 or fewer employees have an extra year to comply.
Wages will rise with inflation each year thereafter.
The Democratic governor negotiated the deal with labor unions to head off competing labor-backed ballot initiatives that would have imposed swifter increases with fewer safeguards.
About 2.2 million Californians now earn the minimum wage, but University of California, Irvine, economics professor David Neumark estimated the boost could cost 5 to 10 percent of low-skilled workers their jobs.
Brown has said California, with the world’s eighth largest economy, can absorb the raises without the problems predicted by opponents.
California and Massachusetts currently have the highest statewide minimum wage at $10. Washington, D.C., stands at $10.50. Los Angeles, Seattle and other cities have recently approved $15 minimum wages, while Oregon officials plan to increase the minimum to $14.75 an hour in cities and $12.50 in rural areas by 2022.
New York’s state budget includes gradually raising the $9 minimum wage to $15, starting in New York City in three years and phasing in at a lower level elsewhere. An eventual statewide increase to $15 would be tied to economic indicators like inflation.
6 responses to “California enacts highest statewide minimum wage in U.S.”
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Nice, but California will have less people working when those wage kick in. If I were in the fast food business, I would automate the ordering process with machines and pay no wages.
Small business is so scr*wed in California. I feel sorry for them, always an after thought for the liberals, they represent an economic force that they constantly underestimate and unfortunately for the Californians, they will pay the costs for their leader’s constant miscalculations.
Hawaii should have done this 30 years ago.
2022 is plenty of time for the big businesses like McDonalds,Burger King, Taco Bell,Jack in the Box to make those adjustments. In the fast food business?You know this will mean fully automation/Robots. They already started!! Notice the menu? how expensive they have gotten? Again,as i said this is sad news for the SMALL businesses,but also sad for the minimum wage earners….The outcome of raising the Minimum wage to 15 dollars??Like Holly Diaz….Many will be out of work!!
If Gov Jerry Brown had any business sense,like many Democratic states.It should have been done gradually.
Washington Post reports: “The survey of 1,000 business executives across the country was conducted by LuntzGlobal, the firm run by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, and obtained by a liberal watchdog group called the Center for Media and Democracy. Among the most interesting findings: 80 percent of respondents said they supported raising their state’s minimum wage, while only eight percent opposed it.”
It’s time for Hawaii to raise the minimum wage to a living wage tied to the local cost of living. If we don’t raise wages we will have even more homeless people living in tents.