ON New Year’s Day, California employees will get a raise.
Effective Jan. 1, 2016, the state minimum wage will go up one dollar to $10 an hour. As signed by California Governor Jerry Brown, and voted on in July by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, workers will also have job-protected leave to address child-care or school emergencies.
The scheduled wage hike bring California workers’ minimum wage (currently at $9 in the Golden State) up more than two dollars over the $7.25 federal minimum wage, reported CBS Los Angeles.
LA City Council voted in July to continue increasing the minimum wage slowly each year, to reach $15 by 2020.
The widely anticipated wage hike to $10 by Los Angeles, the largest local government in the United States, applies to unincorporated areas and thousands of employees, joining at least 12 states. Within a few years, according to reports, more than half of the countywide workforce will be guaranteed a base income more than 60 percent higher than the current rate.
With some exceptions to the new law, the statewide change is expected to affect over 9 million workers being paid at or below the federal minimum wage in California, according to a recent report from US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“We’re at a turning point,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics research firm, told the Los Angeles Times. “I think it’ll be a breakout year [in 2016] for wage growth.”
With an estimated 2.5 million working mothers with children under 18 in California, SB 579 will also provide job-protected leave to address child-care or school emergencies, and prohibit employers with 25 or more employees from discharging or discriminating against employees for taking up to eight hours a month to participate in school or day-care activities with their children.
Another new law that went into effect on July 1 allows eligible part-time and hourly workers to accrue sick time, giving them access to benefits already enjoyed by white-collar professionals.
Economic growth in 2016 is projected to remain moderate, but about half a point stronger than this year’s pace of just over 2 percent, said the LA Times.
Reactions were mixed, mostly among small business owners, who both welcomed and were disgruntled at the change.
“We don’t really have a choice and it’s going to happen,” said Chris Ulrich, co-owner of First Awakenings restaurant in Pacific Grove, California.
Ulrich added that under the new law about 17 of their employees will get a raise, meaning the restaurant will have pay to more than 130 extra dollars a day to their staff.
“As a business owner you always want to try and keep your expenses down,” said Ulrich. “We’re not happy about it because it drives our customers away that are used to a certain amount. But we just raised everything a small percentage not even 10 percent.”
Gaby Granados with Medina’s Bridal Shop in Salinas already makes $10 dollars an hour.
“We have bills, insurance, rent, food,” Granados told CNN news partner KION, applauding the new wage increase but arguing that 10 dollars an hour is not much. “We’re still trying to fit in school it’s really, really hard. I think they should do at least $12 and I still don’t think that’s enough.”
She also expressed her fears that some businesses will not implement the new wage increase.
“There’s a lot of people who take advantage of field workers or even people who don’t have papers and I think that’s really wrong,” Granados said, adding her belief that with the minimum wage going up, so will everything else, leaving her and other employees “stuck in the same place financially, instead of moving ahead.”
“No matter how much we’re getting paid things are just gonna keep going up and up and up,” said Granados.
LA cities like Santa Monica and West Hollywood are considering their own wage hikes. Many other local cities—such as Glendale, Pasadena, Santa Clarita, Torrance and Long Beach—have yet to decide whether to boost wages.
“With more proof that gradual wage increases won’t shock the economy, more states are going to follow suit,” said Bill Scher, an activist and analyst for the Campaign for America’s Future.
Four other states–including New York, Oregon, and Washington DC–are also considering proposals in the coming year to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
