If you’re a minimum wage employee in Long Beach, your wallet may be getting a little fatter in the near future.
City officials are considering a city-wide wage increase, with a third community review session taking place this Thursday at the Long Beach Community College, Carson campus. While the exact increase has not been publicly specified, speculation alludes to a $15 minimum wage.
“It is important that we move forward with a community process that is collaborative, open and balanced,” Mayor Robert Garcia said in a statement released in September announcing the community review process.
California’s minimum wage is currently $9 an hour. If approved, Long Beach will join the likes of Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York where minimum wage increases have recently been implemented.
City Council members unanimously approved a wage increase study in early August after four council members, Suja Lowenthal, Lena Gonzalez, Dee Andrews and Rex Richardson, asked that the topic be put on the agenda.
In the Aug. 11 agenda memorandum to Garcia and other city council members, Gonzalez, Lowenthal, Andrews and Richardson called on the city to investigate the potential impact of surrounding cities’ decisions to raise minimum wage, while considering whether a higher minimum wage would be beneficial to Long Beach.