When Is the Minimum Wage Going Up Again
Bryan Quiambao has worked at the Jamba Juice on Pasadena'southward Lake Avenue for the past four years. When he started, he made $8 per hour. Thank you to Metropolis Council action in 2016, Sunday will mark the 3rd time his wages take gone up since and then.
Now, he'll be making $xiii.25 per hour.
He said he's been happy with the change, but it won't brand much of a divergence if the cost of living goes up because of it.
"Every time I get to the market, prices get upward every then oft," he said. "So it kind of negates the raise with the price departure. Merely overall, (the increases) did assist. Information technology does help."
That question, whether a higher minimum wage increases the cost of living, or whether it simply helps workers afford living in a identify where costs are rising regardless, is at the heart of a national fence playing out locally.
Research has been mixed. A 2017 written report from the right-leaning Heritage Foundation compiled studies and surveys dating dorsum to 1979 and concluded that "$15 minimum wages will essentially increase prices."
But a University of Washington written report from final twelvemonth plant that Seattle'southward minimum wage increment did not take a pregnant impact on prices. The university did, however, find the hike could have been a factor in reduced hours and hiring for depression-wage workers.
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In Pasadena, activists who chosen for the city to implement its own $15 minimum wage marked a win when Urban center Council voted in 2016 to incrementally raise the minimum wage annually through 2018. Employers with 26 or more than employees were required to pay $ten.50 per hour in 2016; $12 per hour in 2017; and $thirteen.25 first Lord's day. Employers with fewer employees take an additional year to comply with each increase.
Marker Maier, an economics professor at Glendale Community Higher, has been heavily involved in the try through the community grouping Pasadenans Organizing for Progress. He said what Pasadena is doing is of import because wages have to keep upward with the toll of living.
Compounding the touch of the city's move is that Pasadena isn't the alone in addressing the issue, he said. Pasadena's wage hikes have mirrored Los Angeles', as well as L.A. County's, which applies to unincorporated areas, such as Altadena.
"It'south actually important that Pasadena doesn't deviate from what neighboring big cities are doing," Maier said. "For employers' sake, they need higher quality employees, and those employees aren't going to piece of work in Pasadena if they can get higher wages elsewhere."
Not anybody in Pasadena sees it that manner. Paul Fiddling, president and CEO of Pasadena's Chamber of Commerce, said the increases haven't been gradual enough and are putting businesses in a tough spot.
"What we see is, in some cases, people are coping by changing the way they practise business a flake," he said. "You go to luncheon now and see more buffet service than y'all used to. That'due south because that'southward three or four employees they don't have to have on the flooring."
Little said some businesses have shut down rather than pay the higher wages.
Byron Takeuchi, who owns the Pasadena-based chain B-Man's Teriyaki and Burgers, tin can speak to that. He said he's raised prices with each bump in the minimum wage, including this weekend's. He shut downwards his Azusa location because he couldn't afford to maintain it as wages rise.
"The minimum wage, plus rent, and the lack of love from people willing to pay more — it's merely, you know, too much," Takeuchi said. "So I just said, 'Forget it,' and I gave up."
For at present, he's sticking with his Pasadena and Duarte locations. He said that while his employees "love" the higher minimum wage, it also means he has less room to advantage his all-time workers.
"There'south not as much of a difference (in pay) equally there was before betwixt my good ones and my brand new ones, yous know, because now we're at $13.25," he said. "Information technology's harder to pay them a whole lot more than that, so I feel like it takes abroad an incentive to work hard."
The hikes may exist having an even bigger affect on local nonprofits. Kelly White, CEO of Villa Esperanza Services, which provides intendance to disabled people of all ages, said the jump to $13.25 volition add at least $700,000 to her payroll this year.
She said her nonprofit is in a tricky position because much of her revenue comes state funding, which hasn't grown to friction match the minimum wage requirements. Although her employees piece of work hard, she said, the math just doesn't add up.
"They do deserve the wages," White said. "It's just, we can't increase our prices like other industries have."
She said she'll probably have to alter the way Villa Esperanza does concern to address the gap, just she tin can't specify however merely what that might look like.
Every bit far as the city is concerned, there's no looking back now. Its biggest concern at the moment is making sure the police is enforced.
Jon Pollard, a code compliance manager for the city, is tasked with doing just that. He and Pasadenans Organizing for Progress fellow member Julieta Aragon take worked together to canvas Pasadena businesses and ensure people know the police and that workers are getting paid their rightful wages.
"In general, in the vast majority of cases, (business owners) are receptive," Pollard said. "In some instances, there have been some owners — this is a very small number — simply it has occurred where they vent their ire at having to pay the minimum wage. … Simply that's a very pocket-size fraction of the people that we've encountered."
For now, the unanswered question is whether Pasadena volition continue to follow in the footsteps of its neighbors and implement a $15 minimum wage in 2020. The City Council opted not to go that far in its 2016 move, deciding to wait until 2019 to consider two more than years of raises.
Pollard said that discussion will happen in February.
While Fiddling said he hopes the metropolis volition "default to what the state'south doing," which is a slower march to $fifteen per 60 minutes for all workers by 2023, he's not holding his breath.
For Quiambao's part, though, he said making $15 per hour by 2020 would be a dream.
"Two years is not a long time," he said. "And then that would be amazing, to be able to run into that."
Source: https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2018/07/01/minimum-wage-is-going-up-again-and-pasadenans-are-conflicted-about-what-it-means-for-the-city/
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