Yup. Today is the day. The minimum wage hike to $12.25/hr, with accruing paid sick leave, passing as it did with more than 80% (!!) support in November, is now in effect in Oakland, CA. It began 3/2/15, at 12:00 midnight.
As of today, it's the highest generally applicable minimum wage in the country.
Politicians didn't have the courage to pass it. Hell, even after it was obvious and inevitable that it would be on the ballot and that it would pass, not one member of the Oakland City Council or the Mayor had the guts to even introduce equivalent legislation. It took a grassroots campaign, led by community orgs, non-profits and labor unions, gathering more than 30,000 signatures over the course of three months, to make it happen.
California's minimum wage is $9 now. Neighboring Berkeley has a $10/hr minimum wage right now, going up to $11/hr in Occtober and then to $12.53/hr a year later. Emeryville, tucked between Oakland and Berkeley, is contemplating a $14.13/hr minimum wage. San Francisco will match Oakland's $12.25/hr in May, and then continue on up gradually to $15/hr by 2018. Oakland's minimum wage will rise with the Consumer Price Index yearly beginning in January.
Even Walmart now thinks a $7.25/hr minimum wage is not enough, and even the majority of Republicans believe that raising it to $12.50/hr by 2020 is a good idea. Yet most of the nation's minimum wage workers still struggle at the Federal minimum wage or a pittance above it. It's time for the rest of the country to follow Oakland's, San Francisco's and Seattle's example.
People say that this is an experiment - never before has a minimum wage risen so steeply in one shot. If so it is the best kind of human experimentation, a science that will leave a lot of people better off.