Last month, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a long overdue bill that will raise California’s minimum wage from $8 per hour to $10 per hour by 2016.
California, the nation’s most populous state, is also home to the highest number of working poor families in the country, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“More than one-third of California’s working families are low-income, earning less than $45,397 for a family of four,” the article reports.
Alarmingly, most of the jobs added since the Great Recession have been low-wage jobs, increasingly occupied by family breadwinners and college graduates.
“That’s because over the past three decades, the U.S. economy has done a poor job of creating good middle-class jobs; five of the six fastest-growing job categories today pay less than the median wage,” according to James Surowiecki of The New Yorker.
Critics of raising the minimum wage argue the hike will increase unemployment and hurt small businesses, when in fact a majority of small business owners support raising and indexing the minimum wage, believing it will boost the economy.
“A 67 percent majority of small business owners agree the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour should increase, and that it should be adjusted annually to keep pace with the cost of living. Moreover, almost four in 10 (36 percent) strongly agree,” according to Small Business Majority, an advocacy group run by small business owners.
As Gov. Brown said at the bill’s signing last month, raising the minimum wage is “a matter of justice” that corresponds with rewarding hard work with a livable wage.
Too many fast-food workers, retail clerks and other low-wage workers take on multiple jobs in order to make ends meet.
“A $10.00 minimum wage would have pulled roughly 58 percent of the nation’s 10.4 million working poor out of poverty in 2011,” according to a recent study by the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a national organization focusing on racial equity in the restaurant industry.
As the federal government remains in political deadlock over any legislation, California seems poised to reap economic rewards for reinvesting in its labor force.
“The wage increase is estimated to benefit 3.4 million workers in California and generate $3.3 billion in new economic growth,” according to the National Employment Law Project. “With new job growth tilted towards low-paying fields, California is leading the way in tackling this problem by boosting pay for millions of its lowest paid workers.”