News

L.A. raises minimum wage to $15

The city of Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the U.S., voted Tuesday to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, from the current $9.

May 21, 2015

The city of Los Angeles, the second-largest city in the U.S., voted Tuesday to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, from the current $9, according to The New York Times. 

The move is "perhaps the most significant victory so far for labor groups and their allies," the article said. The Los Angeles City Council passed the increase in a 14-to-1 vote, an act that will impact nearly half the city's workers, who are estimated to make less than $15 an hour.

"The effects here will be the biggest by far," said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, in the article. City leaders commissioned Reich to conduct several studies on the impacts of a 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," he said.

Additionally, New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced this month plans to organize a state board to consider wage increases in the local QSR industry. New York minimum wage pays $8.75 an hour, more than one dollar higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25.