California minimum wage to reach $16.00/hour effective January 1, 2024 for all employers, Fast food restaurant workers get $20.00/hour starting April 1, 2024

(SAN FRANCISCO) One of the new laws in effect on New Year Day in 2024 is the California statewide minimum wage which will increase to $16 per hour. Workers in two industries will receive a greater boost in mid 2024 to $20 per hour for the fast food restaurant workers and $23 per hour for the health care workers.

Currently in 2013, the state minimum wage is $15.50 per hour. Starting January 1, 2024, California minimum wage will be up to $16 if the local jurisdictions have not passed any laws to adjust their own minimum wages.

For instance, the minimum wage passed by the City and County of San Francisco has been adjusted to $18.07 per hour since July 1, 2023. Most of the cities and counties in the San Francisco Bay Area have approved their minimum wages above the state rate.

The data provided by the UC Berkeley Labor Center has shown that the highest minimum wage law in California and across the country is implemented by the City of West Hollywood which presently requires the employers to pay their workers at least $19.08 per hour since July 1, 2023.

The highest minimum wage rate in the Bay Area is Emeryville at $18.67 starting July 1, 2023. After New Year Day in 2024, Mountain View will become the city enforcing the highest minimum wage law in the Bay Area at $18.75 per hour.

In general, the level of minimum wage in the Bay Area is higher than the cities and counties in Southern California. The minimum wage in Los Angeles City is $16.78 per hour since July 1, 2023. Any hotels in Los Angeles with 60 or more rooms are required to pay their workers $19.73 per hour since July 1, 2023.

The current state minimum wage law, SB 3, was introduced by former State Senator Mark Leno of San Francisco in 2016 and enacted on January 1, 2017. SB 3 created a schedule to increase California's minimum wage each year from $10 to reach $15.

After the state minimum wage reached $15 an hour for all employees that was in 2023, the rate would be adjusted annually for inflation based on the national consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers. California begins its annual adjustment following the consumer index from 2024.

In addition to the state minimum wage raise, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1228 into law on September 28, 2023 to repeal AB 257, the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act, and replace it with a $20 per hour minimum wage for fast food workers in the chain restaurants which operate 60 or over establishments nationally starting April 1, 2024.

This hourly minimum wage for fast food restaurant employees may be increased by a state-appointed Fast Food Council on an annual basis, beginning on January 1, 2025, at a rate tied to the Consumer Price Index for 5 years.

The council also has the authority to set different minimum wage rates in different regions of the state. Its authority to increase the minimum wage in California will expire at the end of 2029.

"California will increase the minimum wage for over 500,000 fast-food workers to $20/hour starting April 1, 2024." Newsom said when he signed AB 1228 in September. "With Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena)'s bill, we are taking a step toward fairer wages, safer and healthier working conditions, and better training by giving fast-food workers a stronger voice."

California Restaurant Association was neutral on AB 1228. "The bill avoids a costly referendum fight on the 2024 ballot, eliminates a barrage of harmful policies targeting larger quick-service chain restaurants, and avoids a $22 minimum wage in exchange for a $20 minimum wage in April 2024. Opposition (to AB 257) was removed due to the final deal and other policy victories (on AB 1228)," the association stated on its website.

Although the rise of the fast food workers’ minimum wage will only affect the big chain fast food restaurants like McDonald, and Burger King. The smaller-scale restaurant owners are worried that AB 1228 would affect them later or sooner.

A Chinese restaurant owner in San Francisco Chinatown who did not want to be identified said that the minimum wage increase would make it harder for him to hire workers. "Since the pandemic, we are not able to hire enough workers at our restaurant. It will be harder in 2024 to hire because of the competition between employers paying higher and lower wages. We might need to raise the wages in order to get people interested in applying."

According to a recent report by the Business Insider, two Pizza Hut franchise operators with hundreds of stores across California will lay off all delivery drivers in February. That is about more than 1,200 jobs in the state.

On October 13, 2023, Newsom signed SB 525, which was introduced by State Senator Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), to raise the minimum wage for California health care workers step by step to $25 per hour starting June 1, 2024.

SB 525 would require any covered health care facility employer with 10,000 or more full-time employees to pay for the health care employees with a minimum wage at $23 per hour from June 1, 2024 to May 31, 2025; $24 per hour from June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026; and $25 per hour from June 1, 2026, and until as adjusted as specified.