On Monday, September 1 in a Labor Day speech, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced his proposal to increase the city’s minimum wage to $13.25 per hour by 2017, and to tie the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index going forward. California’s minimum wage increased this summer to $9 per hour, and will increase again to $10 per hour in January of 2016.
During the Labor Day Rally to Address Poverty in Los Angeles, Mayor Garcetti reportedly advocated raising the minimum wage, saying, “we’ve seen Republicans and Democrats alike say our minimum wage simply is too low, that people cannot support themselves.” Mayor Garcetti further explained his position on the blog of the LA mayor’s official website:
My plan would raise the minimum wage in LA to a level where working people could lift themselves out of poverty. This will help us all. 1 million Angelenos live in poverty — this holds our entire economy back. Minimum wage earners pump their salaries back into our economy.
Several California cities have already raised their minimum wage rates above the state’s standard. For example, San Jose’s minimum wage is now $10 per hour, and San Francisco’s is currently $10.74 per hour (which was formerly the highest minimum wage in the country until it was exceeded by the City of Seattle’s $15 per hour minimum wage rate, scheduled to take effect in 2015).
According to Robert R. Roginson, a shareholder in the Los Angeles office of Ogletree Deakins, “The increasing proliferation of local and municipal living or minimum wage mandates presents significant risks for employers with statewide operations. Employers must be prepared to devote additional resources to ensuring compliance with the growing hodgepodge of different, sometimes conflicting state and local requirements.”
