October 13, 2014
By Stephanie West
On Tuesday October 7th, six members of the LA City Council introduced a measure that would put the city’s minimum wage on a path to $15.25 per hour by 2019 – two dollars higher than Mayor Garcetti’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $13.25. The LA Times described the Council proposal as having “upped the ante…in the drive for a higher minimum wage.”
The NBC affiliate in LA spoke with fast-food worker Albina Ardon about the proposal and called her “part of a growing group of fast-food workers who are pushing for the $15 minimum wage.” Ardon told NBC: “While the $13.25 hourly minimum wage proposal ‘is a good start,' a $15 an hour wage is needed.”
In King County in Washington State, the Seattle Times reported on Monday October. 6th that the County Council approved legislation establishing a $15 per hour living wage for all county employees, as well as employees for companies that do business with the city.
The Chicago Sun-Times ran a strong editorial on Monday October 6th in support of increasing the city’s minimum wage, arguing that Chicago’s wage floor should be “raised to at least $13,” but adding that “there’s a good argument for hiking the minimum wage even more,” in line with a proposal introduced by several Chicago alderman earlier this year raising the city’s wage to $15 per hour.
Observing this groundswell of momentum to raise wages and place workers at the center of the economic debate, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry wrote in The Hill that the Fight for $15 is “netting results that were unimaginable during that first protest nearly two years ago.”
