It’s that time of year, folks—the dog days of August, when vacations are booked, beaches are crowded, and the Department of Finance menacingly recalculates California’s minimum wage. As instructed by statute, August 1st is the date by which state officials must increase (it never goes down!) the minimum wage for the coming year.
So, without further ado: As of January 1, 2026, California’s statewide minimum wage will rise to an eye-popping $16.90, a 40-cent increase over 2025. (Of course, depending on the business sector and the local jurisdiction, the rate could be much higher—and that’s not even including the union-sponsored, City-Council-passed $30.00 “Olympic Wage” for hotel and airport workers that is scheduled to take effect in Los Angeles just in time for the 2028 Opening Ceremonies.)
An hourly wage just shy of $17.00 is also low compared to California’s “supersized” minimum wage for fast-food workers, which comes in at a whopping $20.00. And, on top of that, the minimum wage for certain healthcare workers just leapt to $24.00 on July 1—and is set to increase to around $25.00 on July 1, 2026.
As we’ve previously reported, the state’s increasing penchant to arbitrarily dictate mandatory wage rates for various industries appears to have backfired on the very workers it was intended to benefit, as studies show that the higher costs on employers actually accelerated job losses and automation in the fast-food industry. Now, a new working paper from the National Bureau of...
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