Los Angeles increase minimum wage to $15 per hour

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, with members of the City Council and community leaders in attendance, signed into law an ordinance that will slowly increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Los Angeles, on Saturday, June 13, 2015. It makes the Los Angeles the largest city in the U.S. to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

With the law, Los Angeles minimum wage will increase gradually:

July 2016 - from $9 to $10.50
Then yearly increase of $12 (2017), $13.25 (2018), $14.25 (2019)and $15 (2020).

Small businesses and nonprofits organization will have an extra year to phase in the increases.

Los Angeles Votes 14-1 for $15 minimum wage

The Los Angeles City Council voted last Tuesday 14-1 in favor of the $15 minimum wage increase, after they hear the statements of residents for and against the plan. There are about 700,000 people earning minimum wage in Los Angeles, the city also has the highest housing costs in the country. Los Angeles will be the 2nd largest city to increase the minimum wage to $15 from $9.

The measure will be sent to the city attorney to prepare a wage ordinance. That ordinance will then go to a council committee and if it get pass it will go to the full council for a final vote and then to Mayor Eric Garcetti.

This will require businesses with more than 25 employees to meet the $15 pay level by 2020, while smaller businesses would have an extra year to comply.