Amador County – Amador County Chamber of Commerce this week circulated opposition to a pending California Assembly bill seeking to raise the state minimum wage by 50 cents.
Jennifer Barrera, a staff expert of California Chamber of Commerce, said Cal-Chamber opposes the bill that “increases the cost of doing business for employers in California,” saying the bill will be considered by the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee on Jan. 4.
Barrera said Assembly Bill 196, by Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville) “as proposed to be amended, increases the state minimum wage to $8.50 per hour in January 2013, and then automatically indexes the wage rate upward ever year thereafter according to the annual percentage of inflation.” The same proposal was made in 2011 by Alejo as AB 10, “which is currently on the suspense file in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.”
Assembly Appropriations Committee analysis on AB 10 said the automatic 50-cent increase in minimum wage would cost the state between $288,000 and $336,000, for the 1,200 and 1,400 minimum wage workers, mostly seasonal employees” that the state government employs for three months a year.
Barrera said Gov. Brown “just recently ordered mid-year trigger cuts, which will cut the budgets of the University of California system, California State University system, public school bus services and In Home Supportive Services. With such significant cuts being made to existing government programs, Cal-Chamber believes that there should not be any more pressure placed on the General Fund with additional burdens such as an increase in minimum wage.”
An analysis of AB10 noted Western Growers, the California Restaurant Association, and the California Grocers Association joined Cal-Chamber in opposition, arguing that “employers are under a severe economic strain due to the recession and cannot afford to provide a higher minimum wage at this time.”
Alejo in the bill argued that “it has been three years since minimum wage workers have been given a raise (in 2008). The purchasing power of minimum wage workers declines on an annual basis while the cost of goods and services increase every year.”
Alejo said the current California minimum wage “is inadequate to support a single adult, and grossly inadequate to support a family.” He said “economists agree that raising the minimum wage will help our economy by generating more consumer spending” and they will spend the extra money because “they cannot afford to save it.”
San Francisco this year enacted the highest minimum wage in the country, setting it at $10.24 an hour.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
