The San Francisco minimum wage has been increased to $15 an hour in a landmark move that sees one of the country’s most expensive city making an important move towards making the tech hub livable.
The northern California city
became the first major city in the U.S. to raise its minimum wage to at least $15 an hour as the cost of living continues to increase due to the continuing success of Silicon Valley. The move was made possible under a ballot measure approved by voters in 2014.
City Administrator Naomi Kelly says this marks the beginning of something special as California lawmakers will soon push the rest of the state’s minimum wage to rise from $10 to $15 by 2022 based on a 2016 vote.
The second city to do so is a much smaller city in the San Francisco Bay Area called Emeryville, which said that it will also increase its minimum wage for smaller employers to $15 starting on Sunday. Larger employers have had to pay their workers a little over $15 since last July.
San Francisco is an attractive place to live in because of all the culture and business the city has but the city is currently dealing with wildfires in nearby areas that have turned the sky orange.
Larger employers in Seattle pay workers at least $15 an hour.
