Workers at Small Businesses to See Minimum Wage Go Up to $10.50 an Hour as State Law Takes Effect in New Year

Many lower-paid workers in California will get a raise on Jan. 1 under the state’s new minimum-wage law, which will eventually boost hourly pay to at least $15.

A waiter serves a round of beers at Los Angeles Ale Works in Hawthorne, where employees will see the minimum wage go up to $10.50 beginning Jan. 1, 2018. (Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

Starting Monday, small companies — those with 25 or fewer employees — will have to pay workers at least $10.50 an hour, up from $10. For those companies, it marks the first of several pay increases mandated by the minimum wage law approved in 2016. Minimum-wage workers at larger companies, who saw their pay increase to $10.50 last January, will get bumped up to $11 an hour on Monday.

Wages will continue to rise incrementally over the next several years. By 2022, employees at large companies will get $15 per hour, a figure that has been the rallying cry of a national movement to boost pay for low-wage workers. Employees at smaller firms will reach $15 an hour in 2023. The increases can be delayed if the state’s economy falters.

Many minimum-wage workers in Southern California, including those in the city of Los Angeles, are already being paid more because of local wage ordinances.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.

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