L. A. County poised to raise wages
After follow- up round of impact studies, base pay hike gains support from Hilda Solis.
Los Angeles County, the nation’s largest local government agency, is expected to approve a gradual increase in the minimum wage when its Board of Supervisors meets Tuesday to vote on the proposal.
Supervisor Hilda Solis, who stalled a vote on the plan last month after pushback from small businesses, now says she is prepared to support a wage increase to $ 15 by 2021, providing the third vote needed for the bill to pass. The current statewide rate is $ 9 an hour.
If the measure, which would apply only to the county’s unincorporated areas, is approved Tuesday, L. A. County would join the city of Los Angeles in enforcing a landmark wage standard that labor groups have been pushing at the national level. About 390,000 people work in Los Angeles County’s unincorporated areas, and more than1.5 million in the city of Los Angeles.
Solis, known as a labor
ally, surprised some observers when she appeared to balk at the proposed increase. But after commissioning a study of small businesses in the county’s unincorporated areas, Solis said that her concerns had been addressed. Supervisors Sheila Kuehl and Mark RidleyThomas had been prepared to vote for the boost last month.
“Yes, it’s going to happen,” Solis said. “I’ve been supportive since the beginning… but I wanted tomake sure that county resources were focused in on how we move through the transition.”
Solis and Supervisor Don Knabe — a Republican who has expressed concerns about the increase — have proposed creating a group to help small businesses throughthe transition tothe higher wage, with measures that could include waiving permit fees, streamlining the licensing process and revising the bidding process for county contracts.
A county- commissioned survey found that about 79% of businesses throughout the county have workers currently making less than $ 15.25 an hour. Solis’ separate survey of unincorporated businesses found that about 60% of their employees would see some increase under the plan.
Backers including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti are hoping that the supervisors’ move will encourage many of the county’s other 87 smaller, independent cities to follow suit, creating a higher region a lwage.
Martin Romitti, senior vice president of the Arlington, Va.- based Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, said it’s likely that $ 15 could become the new norm for major coastal metropolitan areas, while cities in the middle of the country may opt for more modest increases.
In areas such as L. A. and Washington, Romitti said, “you’ve got housing costs that run 200% or more of the national average.”
The supervisors commissioned a study by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. this year to consider potential impacts of the wage hike, which would boost base pay to $ 15 by 2020 for businesses with more than 25 employees, and a year later for smaller businesses. The study included a survey of 1,000 county businesses and found that none expected to move or close down as a result of the higher wage. Most said they would pass on the higher costs to customers through increased prices. Some said they might cut jobs.
Solis and Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, who opposes theminimum wage increase, criticized the report for not including specific information on the effects in unincorporated areas such as East Los Angeles, a densely populated area in Solis’ district with a high concentration of Latino owned “mom- and pop- businesses.” Many of those business owners had complained about the proposed increase, saying itwould not be possible to raise prices in the working- class neighborhood enough to offset the higher costs.
County staff canvassed small businesses in unincorporated areas and conducted in- person surveys as part of a follow- up study requested by Solis and Knabe. Antonovich called for a separate telephone survey that was conducted by the Employment Policies Institute, a conservative think tank, and paid for by the county.
Of the small businesses surveyed by county staff, about two- thirds said they would not cut jobs or hours as a result of the wage increase, and therest saidthey would make cuts orwere undecided. Businesses in wealthier districts on the county’s west side were more likely than those in lower- income areas to say they would cut jobs.
The survey also asked business owners what measures the county could take to offset the increased wage costs. The most popular option was cutting permit and licensing fees, which 69% of business owners said would help. The business owners also asked for tax credits.
The Employment Policies Institute survey came up with starkly different results, finding that 63% of businesses said they were likely to cut hours and 54% would probably reduce staffing levels. One- third said they might consider moving to an area with a lower minimumwage.
Kuehl, who has been leading the push for a higher county minimum wage, said in a statement that the institute has “zero academic credibility” and that the study “would be laughable if $ 55,000 of taxpayer money hadn’t been wasted on it.”
The supervisors are set to vote on the minimum wage increase Tuesday, along with separate proposals that would increase base pay for county contractors and look at ways to enforce wage rules countywide.