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Mayor Eric Garcetti signed into law today a bill that will raise the minimum wage to $15, making Los Angeles the largest city in the country to have such a law.Garcetti signed the bill Saturday afternoon in a ceremony at Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, in the neighborhood of Exposition Park. According to City News Service, the park was where Garcetti announced last year on Labor Day that he wanted to raise the minimum wage in the city.
Thank you to my bold #RaiseTheWageLA partners on the LA City Council! pic.twitter.com/ouwkaGTwCe
— Eric Garcetti (@ericgarcetti) June 13, 2015
The ordinance, which passed the City Council with a vote of 12-1, will eventually raise the minimum wage for businesses with at least 25 employees to $15 an hour by the year 2020. Smaller businesses will have an extra year to reach that goal, and in 2022 the minimum wage will continue to increase based on the cost of living. The first raise will be in July of 2016, when minimum wage will have to be $10.50.
The law has, naturally, come under fire from business groups, and Councilman Mitch Englander, the only Republican on the council, was the lone dissenting vote.