The bill that would raise the minimum wage of California and New York City workers to $15 per hour is now a law. Governor Jerry Brown and Andrew Cuomo signed the bill making their state one of the very first to increase workers' pay at this level.
The deal that Brown and the labor leaders together with the Democratic leaders created have made California the frontrunner in surpassing the federal minimum wage which still remains at $7.25 per hour since 2009, according to Reuters.
Governor Brown said the law will balance the system. He added that there had been a lot of chaos in the presidential campaign, and he noticed that one of the main reasons for this anguish is the way the average American is treated in today's economy.
California's lawmakers are fast-tracking the process. This aims to increase the voting preference of Democratic candidates in the upcoming November elections. Presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders also joined the call to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 by the year 2020.
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York also signed the bill that would raise the city's minimum wage to $15 per hour while other parts of the state will have a $12.50 minimum wage per hour. According to The Guardian, the effort showed by New York and California marks the ambitious move to close the national divide between the rich and the poor.
But according to Tom Scott, the director of the state branch of the National federation of Independent Business, the $15 wage increase will have a devastating effect on small businesses in California. He added that the government should not ignore the concerns of the majority of job creators in the state as reported by Breitbart.
There are already fourteen cities that has increased their minimum wage during the start of 2016. Other cities and state will put their increase in a phase which will play from $10 to $15 per hour.
