In what could go down as one of the most honest moments in political history, Brown told reporters that raising the minimum wage was more about culture and politics than about economics.
Brown, traveling to the state’s largest media market to sign the landmark bill, remained hesitant about the economic effect of raising the minimum wage, saying, “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense.”
In a letter to Brown last week, the California Business Roundtable warned that any pause in minimum wage increases would lift just as the state began its recovery.
Assuming wages rise 2 percent per year across the board — a rough estimate, but faster than they have risen in recent years either nationally or in California — then in 2022, about 40 percent of California workers will be in “significantly affected” occupations and 30 percent will be in “highly affected” ones. (Both figures are fairly typical of the U.S. overall.) But as the table below shows, there is huge regional variation. In San Francisco and San Jose, only about 10 to 15 percent of workers are in highly affected occupations. In the San Joaquin Valley area of Visalia-Porterville, that figure is close to 50 percent.
BART is on track to award $1,000 bonuses to each of its 3,357 employees for meeting a ridership threshold, it’s second such payout in two years after paying them $3.3 million last summer, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. . . The news comes amid growing commuter frustration with the system, which was partially sidelined for much of last week after an electrical surge fried 50 cars and resulted in limited bus service on parts of the Pittsburg-Bay Point line.
Recent market volatility has negatively affected the asset performance of several large US pension plans, and could be an early signal that fiscal 2016 returns will fall short of assumed targets for the second consecutive year and erase funding improvements seen in FY 2013 and 2014, Moody’s Investors Service says.
The CFRS is the only major California public pension plan with a funded ratio over 100 percent and, consequently, enjoys a $289 million surplus rather than contributing to the state’s approximately $300 billion in combined unfunded liabilities. . . The reason for the unique success of the CFRS is simple: they promised only what they could afford to pay for. While most public pension plans offer exorbitant benefits without accounting for their cost, the CFRS consistently maintained benefits at an affordable level.
But in places from Music City to the Chicago suburbs to the California coast, wages are growing much faster. Weekly wages grew 4% or better in 44 of the 342 U.S. counties with at least 75,000 jobs, according to Labor Department data released Wednesday. Meanwhile, wages fell from a year earlier in 21 counties, including Midland, Texas, and Union, N.J.
Our policymakers and voters need to heed the Governor’s advice, nonpartisan state numbers, and data that’s trickling in from other cities that are now grappling with grim reality of these hikes before moving forward in any way. Let’s allow the ink to dry, dust to settle and current minimum wage policy – notably our statewide increase – to first play out so we can see what the impacts truly are. Otherwise, instead of branding it a “fair wage” we’ll all see it for what it truly is: a “fare wage”, with every one of us taxpayers – seniors, schools, disabled and many others – paying down an outrageous bill and debt for generations to come.
Although 1 percent of adults earned income from the Online Platform Economy in a given month, more than 4 percent participated over the three-year period.
The share of Americans earning income from digital platforms such as Uber and Airbnb is growing rapidly, but those gigs typically supplement incomes rather than replace full-time work.
So this week the union asked its 32,000 members — down from 45,000 in 2008 — to raise their dues by nearly a third, to about $1000 per member annually, and also to allow UTLA to pass on to members any future increases in dues owed to state and national parent unions.
California has come a long way to dig itself out of budget deficits, but the state remains on shaky ground due to nearly $400 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt from public pensions, retiree health care and bonds, financial analysts say.
While the economic effects of minimum wage laws are very complex and a subject of scrutiny within the economics community, there are much better ways to deal with systematic challenges in the labor market. Getting more people to work, reducing the barriers for businesses to hire and encouraging the accumulation of new skills are all strategies for promoting sustainable long-term growth in wages.
It could shift a greater-than-expected portion of the burden for paying off the debt to school districts; makes the state share highly vulnerable to market volatility; and leaves a good chance that the state will pay no more than it would have before the deal was struck. . . Moreover, in the long term, the plan does not ensure that the debt will be paid off by 2046, or ever.