As it turns out, the impacts of the increase in minimum wage on workers at the very bottom of the pay scales might be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the ramifications of the minimum wage increase.
Nothing short of a “tsunami” appears headed towards state and local government balance sheets as the full extent of the minimum wage “aftershock” begins to come into sharper focus. This comes as state and local governments are still reeling from the impact of unfunded pension and health care liabilities on the order of $1.2 trillion and growing, according to Stanford University.
There was a telling story in the Sacramento Bee yesterday titled “How the $15 minimum wage will affect California state workers,” which provides a snapshot into what is likely to turn into a historic increase in the “cost of government” in California—on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars by my initial rough estimates.
The California State Department of Finance pegged the initial impact for the state of California at $235 million annually, growing to $4 billion when fully implemented. But from what I can tell that only includes the workers who will be immediately impacted.
10/06/2026