Joe Sanberg, a progressive activist and activist, has filed a California ballot initiative to raise the state’s minimum wage from $18 an hour to $18 per hour. This could indicate that organizers in California’s nearly ten-year-old Fight for $15 movement have changed their minds.
The Living Wage Act of 2022 was filed with the California attorney general’s office last week, as first reported by the Los Angeles Times. Blue Apron investor and founder of CalEITC4Me which assists eligible Californians to enroll for the Earned income Tax Credit, Sanberg has promised to fund a campaign that will gather enough signatures in order to get the initiative onto the November ballot.
The state will soon raise its minimum wage from $15 an hour to $15 for large businesses. This bill filing comes as the state prepares to increase its minimum wage to $15 per hour, beginning in January. The wage increase will extend to all businesses in 2023 — right when the Living Wage Act, if passed, would kick in and begin gradually raising the minimum wage to $18 an hour across the board. The wage will continue to rise as the state’s cost of living increases.
Sanberg has long advocated forA higher minimum wage. He tweets about it at least once per week. a figure from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which shows that the federal minimum wage would be $24 if it had kept up with productivity since it was established in 1968 — though some economists on the left point out that the minimum wage would actually be nearly $32 an hour Inflation must be taken into consideration.
“If you work full time, you should be able to live with full financial security, and that’s not the case in California,” Sanberg told the Los Angeles Times. “We were a leader in pushing for a $15 minimum wage, but now we have to move the ball forward and farther. It’s overdue for $18.”
California is indeed the best! been at the forefrontof the fight for $15 minimum wage, a long-term goal of labor advocates and New York fast food workers. In 2012, the Fight for $15 was launched.
However, the MIT living wages calculator shows that a California living wage for a single adult is $1,050 with no children is $18.66 an hour — meaning that even $15 an hour isn’t a living wage in the state. A living wage for an adult with one child, meanwhile, is $40.34 — or about $84,000 a year, a far cry from the roughly $31,000 a year made by full time workers with a $15 wage.
The $18 an hour wage would come closer to a living wage for the state, though it’s likely that inflation will push up the cost of living by the time the wage is implemented. Still, it’s closer to a living wage than $15 an hour.
California’s minimum wage has been increasing since 2016 and is currently $14 an hour for big companies and $13 an hour for small companies.
“The job will be done when everyone who works full time can afford life’s basic needs,” Sanberg told the Los Angeles TimesThe minimum wage should be closer than $24 an hour, according to the petitioner.
Sanberg shared the following tweet: “Minimum wagedisproportionately affects peoples of color.” “Too many in CA — including essential workers -– are paid so little, they can’t afford life’s basic needs. Workers of color are the most vulnerable because of systemic inequity built into the state. much more likely to be paid poverty wages,” he said. “It’s time for a change. We’re raising the wage to $18.”
Nina Turner, a progressive Who was the most recent candidate against Rep. Shontel Brown (D-Ohio) for Brown’s seat in the house, tweeted in support of Sanberg’s initiative on Monday. “It’s unacceptable that millions of minimum wage workers in our country can’t afford life’s basic needs,” she wrote. “True wage justice means *every* worker can live a life of dignity. In places like California, $15 isn’t enough. Will do all I can to make this a reality.”
