The California Minimum Wage Is About To Increase
Last week, the California Legislature voted to increase the state minimum wage to $9.00/hour by July 2014 and to $10.00/hour by January 2016. The bill passed both the Assembly and the Senate by significant majorities and Governor Jerry Brown supports it. Unless other states increase their minimum wage, California will have the highest minimum wage in the country.
In some areas, city ordinances already make the minimum wage higher than this bill. In San Francisco, the minimum wage is $10.55/hour and in San Jose it is already $10.00/hour.
The minimum wage increase will also affect the minimum salary that can be paid to employees to make them exempt from California onerous overtime requirements. In order to be exempt from the overtime laws, employees must be paid a monthly salary equivalent to no less than two times the state minimum wage for full-time employment.
We will keep you updated on any further developments with this law.