link future raises to inflation.
California last raised its minimum wage in 2002, when it bumped the hourly rate by 50 cents.
But that hasn’t kept pace with the cost of living, said Barry Hermanson, an organizer with Californians for Fair Wages. He helped pass a similar ballot measure in San Francisco in 2003, raising the minimum wage there to $8.50 an hour.
“Back in 1968, the minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. If that had been indexed to inflation, it would be more than $9 an hour now,” Hermanson said.
California’s hourly wage is higher than the federal rate of $5.15 an hour but is the lowest among West Coast states. Oregon pays $7.25 an hour, while Washington’s minimum wage is $7.35.
Giving the state’s lowest-paid workers a raise would save the state money by reducing what it must pay to subsidize food, housing and health care for low-income workers, Hermanson said.
The California Chamber of Commerce opposed a bill Schwarzenegger vetoed last month that would have boosted the state’s minimum wage to $7.75 over the next two years.
Schwarzenegger said then that he supported an increase in the minimum wage but objected to a provision in the bill that automatically adjusted the wage each year based on inflation.
Dominic DiMare, the chamber’s vice president of government relations, said he hadn’t seen the coalition’s proposed initiatives and wouldn’t comment.
He said the chamber opposed this year’s bill because it would add to the already high cost of operating in California.
“We look at the cost of doing business here, including minimum wage, but also the cost of permitting, of compliance with various different and often unique requirements in California,” DiMare said. “We don’t parse out minimum wage.”
The coalition, which includes labor groups, the Green Party and the Mexican American Political Association, has yet to submit its initiative proposals to the state attorney general.
Once the attorney general approves the language, which can take two months or longer, supporters can begin gathering the approximately 600,000 signatures per petition needed to put the measures on the November 2006 ballot.
“This will be a signature issue on the November 2006 ballot,” Hermanson said. “It’s something that Democrats and Greens throughout the state can get out and campaign very heavily on and use it as a tool to drive Schwarzenegger out of office.”
A year ago, Schwarzenegger vetoed another minimum wage bill that would have raised the rate without the automatic annual hike. In that veto message, Schwarzenegger said a higher minimum wage would “create barriers” to the state’s economic recovery.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 8, 2005. Read the original PDF.