The Editor Speaks: If you think $6 is too low or too high – look at Seattle and LA
With our historic setting up of a minimum wage there has been much debate on whether our rate of $6 is too low or too high.
How about US$15 (CI$12)?
From BBC By Howard Mustoe Business reporter, New York
Los Angeles follows Seattle in $15 hourly minimum wage
Los Angeles has become the largest city in the US to agree a $15 (£9.67) minimum wage.
The City Council voted 14-1 to pass the law in a victory for the national campaign to raise wages for low-paid workers.
Seattle and San Francisco have already agreed to increase the minimum wage to $15 by 2017 and 2018 respectively.
That compares with a $7.25 federal minimum wage which individual states can opt to beat or reduce.
“Today, Los Angeles becomes the latest and largest city to throw its support behind the legions of workers who ask for nothing less than to be paid a fair and decent wage,” said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, a lobby group for worker rights.
The $15 minimum will be in place by July 2020, according to the proposed legislation.
To get there, from July 2016, the wage will increase annually starting at $10.50. Non-profit organisations with 25 workers or fewer will have longer to raise wages.
“There’s still work to be done, but you will not see this council shy away from its responsibility,” Council President Herb Wesson said on his Twitter account.
US retail giant Walmart – the nation’s largest private employer – announced in February it plans to raise wages for employees at its US stores.
By 1 February 2016, all current workers will earn at least $10 per hour, it said.
SOURCE: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32806059
Note, however, this will not be until 2020. Annual increases will take place.
It is understood our starting figure of CI$6 is just that. The government have hinted that here too there may be increases. Whether in five years time it will reach $12 is open to more debate.
What will be interesting is to see the relevant statistics regarding employment and the cost of living over the next 5 years compared with now.
