LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles City Council has voted to raise the minimum wage in the city to $15 an hour by 2020, making it the largest city in the nation to do so.
The measure approved Tuesday calls for small businesses with 25 or fewer employees to have an additional year to reach the $15 plateau. It could affect as many as 800,000 people, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The council voted 14-1 after members of the public made impassioned statements for and against the plan. Seattle as well as other California cities, such as San Francisco and Oakland, have all recently raised the minimum wage to varying degrees.
“The proposal will bring wages up in a way we haven’t seen since the 1960s," Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley said, according to the New York Times. "There’s a sense spreading that this is the new norm, especially in areas that have high costs of housing.”
The increases begin with a wage of $10.50 in July 2016, followed by annual increases to $12, $13.25, $14.25 and then $15. Small businesses and nonprofits would be a year behind.
The vote sends the measure to the city attorney to prepare a wage ordinance.
Workers cheered in the council chambers after the vote, but labor and business leaders both voiced disagreements with the plan. Labor leaders said they were dissatisfied with the gradual timeline, while representatives from the business side claimed the proposed increases are an unattainable mandate.
"It's simple math," Ruben Gonzalez of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce said, according to the Times. "There is simply not enough room, enough margin in these businesses to absorb a 50-plus percent increase in labor costs over a short period of time."