San Francisco won't be outdone by Seattle. San Francisco's November ballot will include a measure
raising the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour just months after Seattle was put on its way to $15 by its mayor and city council. In San Francisco:
The compromise announced at City Hall would increase the city's current hourly base pay, $10.74, to $12.25 next May 1, then to $13 in July 2016 and $1 each subsequent year until it reaches $15 in 2018. That would bring the annual pay for a full-time minimum-wage worker to $31,000.
The deal means that labor activists, who had filed a separate ballot measure to raise the wage to $15 by 2017, will drop their effort.
"I can't tell you how happy I am - San Francisco is yet again setting the bar on workers' rights," said Supervisor Jane Kim, who helped broker the deal. "All San Francisco employers will be paying $15 an hour by 2018 - there will be no tip credit, no health care credit. These are pure wages workers will be bringing home to their families."
With the federal minimum wage stalled at $7.25 an hour and Republicans standing in the way of any increase, action by states and cities is the only way to ensure workers anything approximating a living wage. Happily, a number of states and cities have recently taken that action, with more putting minimum wage measures on the November ballot. But too many American workers are still left behind.