Posted on 05/19/2015 7:57:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Los Angeles lawmakers are expected to vote Tuesday on a hotly debated plan to hike the minimum wage across the city to at least $15 an hour.
If they press forward with that plan, the city could soon join Seattle, San Francisco and other West Coast cities that have boosted wages as part of a national campaign led by labor and community groups to reduce poverty, even as business groups argue the strategy will backfire as employers slash jobs.
Workers are currently supposed to earn at least the California state minimum wage of $9 an hour, which will rise to $10 an hour in January. Under a plan endorsed by a key panel of City Council members last week, Los Angeles would increase its required wage year-by-year to reach a minimum of $15 hourly by July 2020.
Small businesses -- those with 25 workers or fewer -- would get an additional year to phase in the increases. Nonprofits that meet certain requirements could ask permission to do the same.
Under the plan, the wage requirements would continue to rise automatically every year starting in July 2022, based on the average increase in the consumer price index over the previous two decades.
The wage proposal would hike pay more slowly than some activists wanted. But leaders in the Raise the Wage Coalition nonetheless heralded it last week as a sound plan to improve the standard of living for low-income workers and their families.
Business groups such as the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. remain worried the hikes would hurt the economy and have been especially critical of the automatic, future pay increases as a threat to businesses.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
What better way to cause a business to fail California a true third world state.
You would think these lawmakers would do the prudent thing and wait to see the outcome of other cities that have raised minimum wage...
I would think if they really wanted to help people in poverty, they would actually lower the minimum to employ more people...
Having a job sure beats $0 wage...
Wonderful news. They’ll stop drawing ever more illegal immigrants into the country; taxpayers will have to subsidize corporations’ laborers less.
Sorry, folks, but in today’s labor market, people are getting paid $40,000 a year either way. And now you’re also going to be paying for their health care. The only question is whether it comes from their employers or from the taxpayers. All these corporations like McDonald’s, pay their workers crap and then bitch and moan for increased immigration because they can’t find people to work for $7 and hour.
What century do you live in? Do you think anyone can live on $7 an hour? NOBODY does. People make $14,000 a year from McDonald’s... then get $30,000 more in benefits from the state. An unwed mother has to make $60,000 before she quits getting benefits.
I don’t know what the min wage was in 1965 but it wasn’t anywhere near $2.
I remember min wage of $1.35 in the 1970s.
They learned nothing from those idiots in Seattle?
Make it an even $100.
The min wage laws have outlived their time.
McDonalds pays their people what they are worth.
Now they will pay for automated kiosks and fire a bunch of those no skilled ‘workers’
It does nothing to blame corporations for doing what they are supposed to be doing. If you want to blame someone, blame government for interfering in the private market via welfare. Government has destroyed the beginner’s job market
On a recent trip to the East side of the lower forty eight, I happened upon an airport bar. Being between flights and thirsty, I stopped in and asked the person behind the counter for a pint. She waived me toward an ipad, which i noticed had been mounted on the bar in front of each stool. Ordering was accomplished by utilizing the touch screen and selecting the appropriate photograph, like a McDonald’s counter worker. The payment was tendered by swiping my credit card through a reader attached to the ipad. I noticed that a 20% tip was automatically added to the bill. My beer arrived in due course without me having to actually speak to anyone. The cost was approximately three times the amount charged for the same product at my local pub, not including the tip.
I remember min wage of $1.35 in the 1970s.
In California, IIRC, the minimum wage in 1965 was $1.65 which, at the time, would buy 8 gallons of regular gasoline at the corner Shell Station. I frequently bought "A dollar's worth" for my '55 Bel Air on my way to High School.
I don't know what gas is going for in SoCal these days but I would be willing to bet that $15 won't buy 8 gallons.
I can see IF L.A. raises the minimum wage to $15.00 hr. an exodus of business. No business, no jobs. No jobs, no ability to put bacon on the table, and an exodus of people to other cities seeking work. An exodus of people seeking work will lead to no handouts for the homeless, and less fortunate causing another exodus.
Los Angeles could become a ghost town at their own hand.
1.25 an hour in 1965.
This will produce massive unemployment.
RE: Los Angeles could become a ghost town at their own hand.
We’ll always have Hollywood.
>> It does nothing to blame corporations for doing what they are supposed to be doing. If you want to blame someone, blame government for interfering in the private market via welfare. Government has destroyed the beginner’s job market <<
True: the government policy is creating a massive entitlement culture, and is importing millions of unskilled laborers every year. But who’s driving that policy? Massive statist corporations like McDonald’s! Why do you think workers are worth so little? Because there are 1000 illegal immigrants who’d take their jobs! Maybe you think they do such crappy work that they aren’t worth any more than $7 an hour? In the cases where that’s so, don’t you think the fact that they don’t care about education, advancement, effort, ambition is WHY their labor is worth so little? If they have to compete harder for $15 an hour, don’t you think they’ll bother to learn English, work faster, learn more skills? If the problem is too many unskilled workers, why are the corporations all lining up to push for more unskilled workers (to be subsidized by you)?
“But leaders in the Raise the Wage Coalition nonetheless heralded it last week as a sound plan to improve the standard of living for low-income workers and their families.”
False, empty promises. The same with every other left wing idea.
The super majority of the Democrats already passed a new 65 cents a gallon gas tax, so why not do whatever they want knowing they can confiscate everyone’s income, savings and property assets?
No, it will produce a massive reduction in the importation of low-wage, unskilled, government-subsidized workers.
21 st
Do you think anyone can live on $7 an hour? NOBODY does.
Nobody is supposed to live on $7.00 an hour...BTW where is the minimum wage $7.00 an hour? Federal minimum is $7.25
People make $14,000 a year from McDonald’s
...and ?
... then get $30,000 more in benefits from the state.
...not in Florida. Sounds like a state problem...
An unwed mother has to make $60,000 before she quits getting benefits.
Sorry, that's a fantasy...
How about a $2.00 an hour maximum wage then there will be plenty of jobs for everyone, maybe 2 or 3 jobs for everyone?
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