The LBC is taking a more pragmatic approach than most cities.
Hot takes from the City Council meeting that went into Wednesday morning include the following:
- Long Beach’s minimum wage will increase to $10.50 in 2017, $12.00 in 2018, and arrive at $13.00 in 2019.
- The city also voted to commission a future study to evaluate the effects of the increase to $13. Should the study reveal salutary effects, then an additional wage increase would kick in, $14 in 2020, and $15 in 2021.
- From 2023 onward, the minimum wage will be indexed to inflation with the Greater LA area.
- Small businesses with 25 or fewer employees have a one-year delay for each of the currently scheduled increases.
- A training wage worth 85% of the minimum can be paid to interns for the first 480 hours or six months of employment.
- The votes on both the initial wage hike and the future study were 6-2, with Councilmembers Stacy Mungo and Darryl Supernaw dissenting on both votes.
With all the discussion about whether or not minimum wage increases will be a boost to the city’s less wealthy or be a disaster for the city’s businesses, the council commissioned a study through the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. to examine the potential impacts the increase might have.
The LAEDC study predicted a best case scenario of roughly 45,000 minimum wage earners in the city pocketing an extra $5,160 on average. The other side of the coin projected over 20,000 workers being at risk for lay-offs, cut hours, or being replaced by technology.
In a survey of 600 local businesses, only 10% of respondents anticipated downsizing, while some 93% expected to raise their prices.
The City of Long Beach itself will face increased labor costs, with more than 200 full time equivalent positions currently earning under the planned increases, by the time $13 rolls around, the city expects roughly $850,000 in new labor costs. The city’s contractors who would pass on their own increased labor costs has been estimated to arrive between $560,000 and $1.2 million.
More on the LBC’s wage increase can be found here.