After the City of Los Angeles passed an ordinance this summer to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, Richard LoGuercio spent the following weekend driving around a nearby city, looking for warehouses to move his business.
“I am just screwed,” said LoGuercio, owner and president of Town and Country Event Rentals in Van Nuys, which employs 450 people, more than half of whom earn between $10 to $13 an hour. Moving his shop to another county could help him escape the mandated wage increase.
“Labor has kind of become our enemy, because it’s just so high,” he said.
When the minimum wage goes up to $15 an hour, LoGuercio estimates his labor costs will increase by 62 percent. He says he fears his labor costs may rise even further because his more experienced workers will need to be paid more than a new employee.
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