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California’s minimum wage could rise to $18 an hour by as soon as 2025 under a ballot measure proposed by Los Angeles anti-poverty activist and entrepreneur Joe Sanberg.
The 2022 initiative, if passed, would make California the state with the highest minimum wage in the country.
California’s minimum wage will hit $15 an hour by January for the state’s bigger employers. Companies with 25 or fewer employees will need to pay their workers at least $15 an hour by 2023, increasing from $10 an hour in 2017.
The full impact of the state’s rising minimum wage is yet to be known. Sanberg said the state’s high rents and cost of living, as well as income inequality, make it necessary for California to adopt an even higher minimum wage.
“The time is now, because the pandemic has heightened the people’s understanding of the realities so many Californians face,” he said. “Cost of living is rising faster and faster,... but wages haven’t increased commensurately.”
Under the proposal, California’s minimum hourly wage would go up by $1 each year on Jan. 1, until 2025 for bigger employers and 2026 for smaller employers. Afterward, the minimum wage would go up each year by the rate of inflation of up to 3.5%.
Sanberg’s proposal would keep an off-ramp allowing a governor to suspend minimum wage increases for a year if the state has a significant budget deficit, a...
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