JULY 1, 2017: Your Minimum Wage Employees May Be Due For An Increase

Author: Rebecca L. Gombos, Esq

Whether your minimum wage employees are due for an increase in pay largely depends on where your business is located, how many employees you have, and where your employees actually perform their work.

Apart from the federal and California minimum wage laws, a number of cities and counties throughout California have promulgated their own special minimum wage requirements which must be followed. For example, the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena and Santa Monica have their own minimum wage rules.  Also, the City of Los Angeles’ Minimum Wage Ordinance applies not only to employers located within the geographic boundaries of the City but also applies to any employee who works within the City’s borders for two or more hours in a week.  If your minimum wage employees sometimes work in the City of Los Angeles, you can either pay the Los Angeles City minimum hourly rate for every hour worked, or you can track the number of hours that your employees spend in Los Angeles and adjust their pay accordingly.  In fact, the City of Los Angeles has its own Rules and Regulations Implementing the Minimum Wage Ordinance that sets forth numerous “suggested methods” for tracking a transient employee’s hours.

The charts below provide the changes to the minimum wage that are effective on July 1, 2017, and in subsequent years in the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena and Santa Monica.

City of Los Angeles

Effective Date Employers with 26 or more Employees Employers with 25 or fewer Employees or Non-Profit Corporations with 26 or more Employees with approval
July 1, 2017 $12.00 $10.50
July 1, 2018 $13.25 $12.00
July 1, 2019 $14.25 $13.25
July 1, 2020 $15.00 $14.25
July 1, 2021 $15.00 $15.00

Santa Monica Ordinance

Effective Date Employers with 26+ employees Employers with 25 or fewer employees
7/1/17 $12.00 $10.50
7/1/18 $13.25 $12.00
7/1/19 $14.25 $13.25
7/1/20 $15.00 $14.25
7/1/21 $15.00 $15.00
7/1/22 CPI CPI

Pasadena Ordinance

Effective Date Employer with 26+ Employers with 25 or fewer employees
7/1/17 $12.00; $10.50
7/1/18 $13.25 $12.00

In addition, on the 90th day of work or July 1, 2017 (whichever is later), employers within the City of Los Angeles with 25 or fewer employees are required to comply with the City of Los Angeles’ paid sick leave provisions that large employers should already have in place.  Under the City of Los Angeles’ paid sick leave laws, all employees are entitled to accrue 1 hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked or an employer may “front load” a lump sum of 48 paid sick leave hours at the beginning of each year (calendar year or 12 month period).

Regardless of whether an employer opts to frontload or accrue the sick pay, the employer MUST permit paid sick leave to carry over from year to year.  However, with respect to the carryover hours, the Ordinance permits employers to place a cap of 72 hours on the carryover (a total of 9 days for a full-time employee working 2,080 hours/year) if the employer has a clearly worded policy to that effect.  Otherwise, the employer must permit employees to carry over any unused sick pay hours from year to year.  Similar to the City’s minimum wage requirements, the paid sick leave law also applies to employees who work a minimum of 2 hours each week within the City of Los Angeles.

Min Wage July 1-2017_Article Map Attachment