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from Kayla MichalovichCalMatters
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Californians will see the minimum wage increase to $16.90 an hour effective Jan. 1. The adjustment — an increase of 40 cents an hour — was calculated in August by the Treasury Department as part of the annual minimum wage review required by state law.
California has been raising its minimum wage for the past decade. Former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016 signed landmark legislation to increase the minimum wage from $10.50 an hour to $15 an hour, plus annual inflation adjustments.
The current rate of $16.50 an hour suggests a minimum wage worker would have to work 98 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom rental at fair market rent in California, according to the National Coalition for Low Income Housing.
California is one of 19 states that will raise the minimum wage in 2026, according to payroll company ADP. Cities and counties can also set their own minimum wages. This year, over two dozen local jurisdictions increased their local minimum wages. West Hollywood will have a minimum wage of $20.25 starting in January — the highest of any city in California, according to UC Berkeley’s Labor Center.
Voters last November flatly rejected a ballot measure it would raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour. But some low-wage workers this year successfully lobbied for pay increases in certain industries.
Under laws signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2023, fast food workers earn a minimum wage of $20 an hour and healthcare workers are on track to make $25 an hour.
That momentum extended to hotel and airport employees in Los Angeles. Labor organizers in May secured an increase in the city’s minimum wage to $30 an hour for those workers until the 2028 Olympics. Big businesses fought back, saying the wage hikes would only increase challenges for the tourism industry, which is still struggling to find its footing after the pandemic.
After failing to gather enough signatures for a ballot measure for repeal of the new minimum wagebusiness groups later filed a different measure that could gutted millions of dollars in revenue from the city’s general fund.
Following the move, Los Angeles City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson this month introduced a proposal to delay the full wage increase from taking effect until 2030. according to a Los Angeles Times report.
Labor leaders slammed the proposal, calling it “repulsive”.
“You can’t threaten to blow a hole in our budget and then the only way we’re going to stop it is on the backs of the workers,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of the union that represents many hotel workers, UNITE HERE Local 11. “This kind of gross extortion and shakedown has no place in our city.”
According to Peterson, a coalition of community organizations and unions is beginning to gather signatures for a ballot measure that would raise the minimum wage to $30 an hour for all workers in Los Angeles.
“The strength is all together,” Peterson said. “Working people need help, and raising wages is the easiest, most straightforward thing you can do. A 40-cent-an-hour raise in 2026 doesn’t move the needle at all.”
Kayla Michalovich is a contributor to California Local News.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.