A quarter of U.S. states have voted to raise the national minimum wage, and now, Los Angeles has made a proposal to join cities like Seattle and San Francisco in significantly raising how much citizens get paid.
The California city now pays its minimum wage workers an hourly rate of $9, according to Reuters. A new proposal by Mayor Eric Garcetti could raise that figure to $13.25 per hour by 2017.
"I'm proposing to responsibly and gradually raise the minimum wage in L.A. to $13.25 because it's deplorable and bad for our economy to have one million Angelenos stuck in poverty, even when working full-time," Garcetti said in a statement on Sept. 1.
The poverty crisis disportionately affects the city's African American and Latino populations. More than a quarter of L.A.'s residents live under the poverty line, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The proposal would hike the wage to $10.25 by 2015 before its 2017 goal.
California increased its state minimum wage from $8 to $9 earlier this month and it will reach $10 per hour by next July. San Franciscans will vote on a ballot initiative this November to raise its city minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next four years. The federal minimum wage currently stands at $7.25.
In the last two years, 13 states and 10 county and city governments have increased their minimum wages, according to NBC News. Seattle sets its wage at $15 an hour by 2018, the highest in the country. Connecticut, Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts and Vermont set their minimum wage for at least $10.10 per hour.
San Diego, Richmond and Berkeley also voted to raise their wages this year in California. Washington D.C. and Sante Fe County and Las Cruces, New Mexico voted the same thing.
"We're seeing a shift around the country where states are looking to the minimum wage as a way to raise incomes for their residents," Jack Temple of the National Employment Law Project told NBC News. The liberal group supports wage increases. "Because Congress hasn't acted, states and cities are doing it instead; $10.10 is the new starting point."
Small business owners have voiced their concern to the wage hike. A higher minimum wage could cause business owners to make employee cuts because they can't pay everyone on their current staff the new wage.
