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Minimum Wage
 August 22, 2006
Long Beach Chamber Responds to
Minimum Wage Deal
 "Today, the Long Beach Chamber
learned that California's minimum wage will increase by $1.25 an
hour over the next two years under a deal struck Monday between
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders.
While, the Chamber remains opposed
to any wage increase, we appreciate the realities of the
situation, and applaud Governor Schwarzenegger for standing firm
against those that would tie the minimum wage to inflation.
Minimum wage increases translate into substantial increases in
employer costs. Therefore, drastically impacting the ability of
employers to create new jobs; additionally, workers’
compensation, unemployment insurance, pensions and a multitude
of other costs also would go up substantially.
The Chamber views the compromise as a common sense solution that
will lead to a higher wage for working Californians without
destroying the economy with autopilot measures like indexing,
which locks in automatic increases year-after-year, regardless
of the condition of the economy or the health of a business. We
are happy to see that there is no indexing or cost-of-living
increase as part of this package.”
Background
Long Beach Chamber-opposed legislation AB 1835 (Lieber, D-Santa
Clara), and SB 1162 (Cedillo, D-Los Angeles) would raise the
California minimum wage. The hike, the first since early 2004,
will lift the state minimum wage to $8.00 per hour from $6.75.
Workers will get a 75-cent increase
Jan. 1 and an additional 50 cents on Jan. 1, 2008. If the
agreement is approved by the Legislature and signed into law,
the minimum wage would increase by 75 cents in January and 50
cents in January 2008. That bill will be amended to reflect
Monday's agreement and will be considered Thursday in the
Senate.
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