The national movement to raise the minimum wage scored its' biggest victory to date when the Los Angeles City Council voted 14-1 to raise its' minimum wage to $15.00 by the year 2020 earlier today.
The increase — which the Los Angeles City Council passed in a 14-1 vote — comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages, and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wage by referendum.
The impact is likely to be particularly strong in Los Angeles, where, according to some estimates, more than 40 percent of the city’s work force earns less than $15 an hour.
Simply put, the minimum wage issue is increasingly becoming a winning issue for Democrats; remember, the minimum wage issue won by large margins in referenda even in
Republican strongholds.
President Obama has already called for an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10. Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have called for an increase in the minimum wage. While the Clinton campaign has not specified a specific number, Bernie Sanders has called upon President Obama to support an increase in the minimum wage to $15.00.
And even though Hillary Clinton does have some gravitas on the minimum wage issue, her campaign may have some catching up to do w/r/t to the increasing number of grassroots victories on this issue.
UPDATE: The vote by the Los Angeles City Council is only the first step in a detailed process.
The vote sends the measure to the city attorney to prepare a wage ordinance. That ordinance will then go to a council committee and, assuming it passes, to the full council for a final vote and then to Garcetti.
The increases would begin with a wage of $10.50 in July 2016, followed by annual increases to $12, $13.25, $14.25 and then $15. Small businesses and nonprofits would be a year behind. Small businesses with 25 or fewer employees to have an additional year to reach the $15 plateau.