San Jose has brought in eight neighboring Silicon Valley cities for the effort.
The main reasoning behind the new approach is to help avoid the creation of wage islands that contribute to inequality across city limits.
Campbell, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Santa Clara, Monte Sereno, and Mountain View are the other cities currently involved with San Jose.
Cities absent from the joint announcement include Saratoga, Sunnyvale, Gilroy, and Los Altos. Sunnyvale officials said they support a regional approach and are currently working on a separate effort with Mountain View.
The next step for the regional coalition is a study in order to assess the impacts of a wage increase. No target wage has been reported yet, but one can imagine that $15 would be the starting point for the ongoing discussion.
One point in the plan that has already received criticism are the cases that would be exempted from the minimum wage. These cases include a “training wage” for youth under 18, and subminimum for parolees, homeless, and foster youth.
For further reading on the Bay Area’s regional approach to minimum wage, see here.
Image Credit: Flickr User pictures-of-money, https://flic.kr/p/s684tk via (CC BY 2.0)