California lawmakers recently approved the nation's highest state-wide minimum wage of $15 an hour that will take effect by 2022. The bill was hailed by Democrats as an example to the U.S. as it struggles with a growing gap between the rich and the poor.
According to Yahoo! News, the measure, which is a deal Governor Jerry Brown reached with the labor leaders and the Democrats in the Legislature, was permitted to take effect in the State Senate on Thursday afternoon. The move was pursued after the bill won approval earlier in the day in the Assembly, and now goes to the Governor for his signature.
"If you work full time, your family shouldn't live in poverty," Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, a Southern California Democrat, stated. Rendon is strongly supporting the bill to raise the state's minimum wage from its current level of $10 per hour.
Reuters reported that lawmakers from the state's poorer areas stated that the measure could negatively affect small businesses that are barely hanging on in the middle of the double-digit unemployment. They said that this even led to job losses.
If the bill will be passed, it would make California a home to one of the world's biggest economies. It could even compete with the growing number of U.S. states and cities that have moved in recent years to surpass the federal minimum wage, which has remained stagnant at $7.25 an hour since 2009.
As proposed, raising the minimum wage in some areas in New York City state to $15 was announced on Thursday by Governor Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders. The California measure would progressively raise the state's hourly minimum wage to $15 by 2022 for large businesses and by 2023 for smaller firms.
Governor Brown, which is a Democrat, was previously hesitant to increase the base wage. He started to negotiate the proposal with the labor unions to head off competing labor-backed November ballot initiatives. This would have imposed faster raises without some of the safeguards included in the legislation. The governor now claims that California's fast-growing economy can absorb the increases without the problems expected by the opponents, Fox News noted.
But, a few moderate Democrats and most Republicans are posing their complaints that the deal was being rushed through. They expressed that it would disproportionately harm businesses in poorer locations of the state.
Meanwhile, the increases are projected to eventually cost California taxpayers an additional $3.6 billion yearly for higher government employee pay. However, some Assembly members insisted that there would be imbalance in the U.S. while a lot of lawmakers would vote in favor of the minimum wage raise.
