In a bold move, Los Angeles moves to the forefront of the fight for higher wages across the country. The second largest city in the United States decided to raise the minimum wage from $9 to $15 per hour.
LA City Council voted this week to make the wage hike by a margin of 14-1.
The new $15 per hour minimum wage begins 2020, thus is a short 5 years into the future. This increase in wages will make a real difference for about 50% of city’s workers and projected to have a massive impacts on the local economy.
“The effects here will be the biggest by far,” said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was commissioned by city leaders to conduct several studies on the potential effects of a minimum-wage increase. “The proposal will bring wages up in a way we haven’t seen since the 1960s.
There’s a sense spreading that this is the new norm, especially in areas that have high costs of housing.”
Source: NY Times
There seems to be a swell of support for minimum wage increases happening around the country. LA joins a growing list of places to raise their minimum wake: San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and Oakland,
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