Steven Mikalan
(updated) March
31.
California is on
track to become the first state to officially raise its minimum wage to $15 an
hour. On March 31, California’s official celebration of labor leader Cesar
Chavez, Democratic legislators agreed to
raise the wage from its current $10 hourly mark to $10.50 beginning January 1,
2017, followed by continuous upticks that will result in the wage leveling off
at $15 an hour by 2022. (Businesses employing fewer than 26 workers would get
an extra year to institute the increases.) The Governor has said he will sign the bill on Monday.
After that the
minimum can rise – but not fall – according to inflation. The agreement
includes a provision giving workers three days of paid sick leave annually; it
also permits California governors to freeze the wage in times of extreme
economic downturn.
The movement
toward a $15 wage has not followed a straight line, with individual city
electorates or governments passing ordinances raising local wages higher than
the state minimum (which cities will still be allowed to do under the proposed
law), but making little headway outside of California’s liberal coastal belt.
The issue has recently been complicated by the emergence of two competing
union-sponsored measures that have sought placement on this November’s state
ballot.
