Petition for $18 minimum wage gaining signatures in California

Not long after a federal increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour failed to take place, Californians may be looking at the opportunity to vote on an even higher minimum hourly pay for their state.

A measure to increase the state’s minimum wage to $18 started to collect signatures in February of this year. If the campaign, which is called the Living Wage Act of 2022, garners 700,000 signatures, it will appear on California’s November ballot.

“The purchasing power of the minimum wage declines over time,” said Joe Sanberg, who is an entrepreneur as well as a sponsor of the legislation. “That means we have to keep fighting for an increased minimum wage to make sure that working people can afford life’s basic needs.”

The measure, if it is signed into law, would slowly hike the minimum wage throughout the state up to $18 from $15 by the year 2025. That means the hourly rate would become $16 in 2023 and $17 in 2025, but only applying to businesses with over 25 employees. Companies with fewer than 25 people employed would only be raised to $17 an hour in 2025.

“The reality in America is that most people who are working full time live on a knife’s edge of financial ruin,” Sanberg continued, adding that a higher minimum wage would help in supporting people of color as well as essential workers.

If the proposal is successful, about 5.5 million people in California will be given a raise of more than $6,000 per year.

At the beginning of 2022, the state’s minimum wage was officially increased to $15 per hour, but some areas have already set their own minimum wages higher than that. The wage increase would also apply to tipped workers and be adjusted in order to keep pace with the cost of living past 2025.