California Raises Minimum Wage To $10/Hour

by Stuart Shapiro

Big news from the west coast about how California will raise the minimum wage, although gradually between now and 2016. Hopefully other states will follow suit. In fact, this should be national law.

California has become the first state in the nation to commit to raising the minimum wage to $10 per hour, with the increase to take place gradually through the start of 2016, under a bill Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Wednesday.

The law raises minimum pay in the most populous U.S. state from its current rate of $8 per hour to $9 by July 2014, and $10 by January 2016, well above the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.

There is a fascinating experiment going on in this country.  Blue states are expanding marriage rights, increasing the minimum wage, and implementing Obamacare.  Red states are doing the opposite.  It will be very interesting to see what the country looks like in a decade when the states vary as much as they have at any time since the end of Jim Crow.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.