Activists Push $15 Minimum Wage for Los Angeles

The unemployment rate in Los
Angeles is higher than the unemployment rate in California (whose
unemployment rate is already higher than the national average).
Calculated at 8.5 percent in April, it’s actually double the
unemployment rate of San Francisco.

Nevertheless, the fact that Los Angeles lags behind in our slow
economic recovery is not stopping labor activists, fresh off a
victory in
Seattle, from pushing for a $15 minimum wage here. According to
KPCC (L.A.’s National Public Radio affiliate) a
ballot initiative was submitted by the Los Angeles Workers
Assembly and the Peoples Power Assembly:

The move follows Seattle’s approval of a new structure that will
gradually increase wages to the $15 threshold by 2017.
 However, activists pushing the L.A. measure want the higher
wage to take effect immediately if it is approved by voters, as
soon as November.  Small businesses and nonprofits would see a
two-year delay before implementation of the new wage. 

Presumably the two-year delay would give small business owners
enough time to find a way to discreetly burn their shops down and
collect the insurance money. You know, I’m half-tempted to say that
a minimum wage boost implemented immediately will reduce
unemployment in Los Angeles, because the unemployed will no longer
be able to afford to live there (see the example of San Francisco
above). Nearby bankrupt and extremely poor
San Bernardino, with its 11.8 percent unemployment, can look
forward to an influx of population from people whose jobs were
replaced by automation or whose employers have shut down
entirely.