U.S.
Al Drago / CQ Roll Call
Officials from eight cities in the Bay Area are set to announce a plan to raise the minimum wage across the region, the San Jose Mercury News reported Thursday. The move is the latest in the growing fight across the United States to increase the minimum wage.
Mayors from the California cities of San Jose, Campbell, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Milpitas, Morgan Hill and Monte Serano, as well as a representative from Santa Clara, were expected to make the formal announcement within hours, the Mercury News reported, without directly citing a source for the information.
Los Angeles this year approved raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. Fast-food workers in New York are set to get raises to take their pay up to $15 an hour over the next few years.
In the Bay Area — a place that has in recent years been increasingly cited as exemplifying the widening U.S. income gap — San Francisco has approved incremental increases to achieve a $15 an hour minimum wage by July of 2018. The Mercury News reported that City of San Jose in 2012 approved a plan that raised the minimum wage to $10.30 in January of 2015. California’s minimum wage is currently $9 an hour, and will rise to $10 an hour in January 2016. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour.
"We have to do more to help those dependent on a minimum wage, but we need to proceed in a thoughtful manner that lifts the tide for all residents," the Mercury News quoted San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo as saying in a statement released Wednesday.
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