Big news from a big state today: the California legislature passed a minimum wage increase! Governor Jerry Brown has confirmed that he will sign the bill, noting in a statement that the legislation “is overdue and will help families that are struggling in this harsh economy.”
Big news from a big state today: the California legislature passed a minimum wage increase! Governor Jerry Brown has confirmed that he will sign the bill, noting in a statement that the legislation “is overdue and will help families that are struggling in this harsh economy.”
Currently, California’s minimum wage is $8.00 per hour – higher than the federal level of $7.25 per hour, but still far too low in a state with a notoriously high cost of living. Under the new law, California’s minimum wage will rise to $9.00 in July 2014 and to $10.00 in January 2016 – higher than any state’s minimum wage today. (Because the minimum wages in nearby Washington and Oregon are indexed to rise with inflation, those wages may be around $10 by 2016 as well.)
This is a major step forward for hundreds of thousands of workers in California – especially for women, who represent about 60 percent of the state’s minimum wage workforce. A minimum wage of $10.00 per hour will bring annual full-time pay up from $16,000 to $20,000, enough for a mom with two kids to pull her family out of poverty. According to the Governor’s Office, 25 percent of California children – that’s about 2.4 million – live in families where at least one parent earns the minimum wage.
The new wage will apply equally to restaurant servers and other workers who earn tips (also mostly women), since California does not have a lower tipped minimum wage. And it’s not just individual workers and their families who will benefit – the state’s economy will get a boost from the additional $2.6 billion in workers’ paychecks, and because women are the majority of workers who will get a raise, the minimum wage increase could also help narrow the wage gap.
California is the fourth state to pass a minimum wage increase this year, and it looks likely that New Jersey will be the fifth, given strong support for an increase that will be on the state’s ballot in November. Campaigns in a number of other states are gearing up to push for minimum wage increases in 2014.
Across the country, public support for a higher minimum wage is extremely strong: a recent poll shows 80% of Americans support raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and indexing it to keep up with inflation. That’s exactly what the federal Fair Minimum Wage Act would do – and it’s about time for Congress to take up the bill. Our leaders in Washington should follow the lead of their counterparts in California (and New York, and Connecticut, and Rhode Island…) and raise the minimum wage for all workers.