California’s $15 Minimum Wage Makes A Lot Less Sense Outside Of Silicon Valley
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.