Supervisors Approve Living Wage Measure: $19.06 Per Hour

[kent]

It's real easy to spend OPM (aka taxpayer money)......

www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Santa-Clara-County-Supervisors-Vote-on-New-Living-Wage-1906-an-Hour-285231431.html

Santa Clara County supervisors passed a new living wage measure Tuesday touted by some to be the most comprehensive in the nation.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors passed the Living Wage Ordinance by a 3-1 vote with one abstention.

The proposed law will require every employer who does business with the county to pay a minimum hourly wage of $19.06 per hour. A living wage ordinance differs from minimum wage laws in that it incorporates health care and other standard-of-living requirements.

Supervisors Ken Yeager and Dave Cortes were puushing the plan. In their report to the board, they wrote, if there are 1,000 service contracts and each has a fiscal impact of $20,000, then the net effect of raising the wage would be a total of $20 million.

"Decades of experience from other jurisdictions with living wage policies have shown that competition among bidders for local government contracts discourages vendors from driving up bids," they wrote.

To compare, San Jose's minimum wage, as of Jan. 1, 2014, rose from $10 to $10.15 an hour. San Jose enacted a living wage policy in 1998, and to date, county officials noted, there has not been any significant impacts during that time.

[djAdvocate]

it will be interesting to see what impact this has in San Jose.  my guess is that it will be minimal.

edit: for those of you that are not aware, San Jose is the largest city in the Bay area, and something like the 5th largest city in the state.

[Opti]

It would be helpful to have some useful information like what kind of service contracts

do they have? All I see is a hypothetical with no actual useful facts to go with it.

Let's hope the board actually knew what kind of impact this would have or not.

I also wonder what they mean by fiscal impact. One employee per contract might

be affected?

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Dec 10, 2014 11:45:15 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

it will be interesting to see what impact this has in San Jose.  my guess is that it will be minimal.

edit: for those of you that are not aware, San Jose is the largest city in the Bay area, and something like the 5th largest city in the state.

For those of you that are not aware, San Jose is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. 

[Deleted]

Dec 12, 2014 19:34:26 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

Dec 10, 2014 11:45:15 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

it will be interesting to see what impact this has in San Jose.  my guess is that it will be minimal.

edit: for those of you that are not aware, San Jose is the largest city in the Bay area, and something like the 5th largest city in the state.

For those of you that are not aware, San Jose is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. 

Link?

[mmhmm]

Dec 12, 2014 19:44:41 GMT -5 @tiki said:

Dec 12, 2014 19:34:26 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

For those of you that are not aware, San Jose is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. 

Link?

All I could find was something on Breitbart. I found the opposite on Huffpo, so who knows? Here's the link from HUFFPO.  Here's the link from BREIBART. Note the Breitbart article is from 2012 and the Huffpo article is from 2014.

[Deleted]

Dec 12, 2014 20:11:29 GMT -5 mmhmm said:

Dec 12, 2014 19:44:41 GMT -5 @tiki said:

Link?

All I could find was something on Breitbart. I found the opposite on Huffpo, so who knows? Here's the link from HUFFPO.  Here's the link from BREIBART. Note the Breitbart article is from 2012 and the Huffpo article is from 2014.

Thank you didi. Huffpo is little bit left wing so I don't believe it totally except Briebart is right wing and totally a liar so if its the only source probably it is false. Also I can't find out an other source.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/15/ten-california-cities-in-distress/2076217/

How's USA Today? Ought to qualify as right up the middle. Yes, it's from 2013, but if you go online and look at the actual budget / balance sheet-- things have not improved.

www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=183 (annual reports, then financial statements are at the bottom)

[djAdvocate]

Dec 12, 2014 19:34:26 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

Dec 10, 2014 11:45:15 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

it will be interesting to see what impact this has in San Jose.  my guess is that it will be minimal.

edit: for those of you that are not aware, San Jose is the largest city in the Bay area, and something like the 5th largest city in the state.

For those of you that are not aware, San Jose is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. 

i don't think that is accurate.  they are doing poorly, however, for a variety of reasons.

they are spending a ton of money to expand the airport and BART.  i hope it works out for them.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

San Jose was downgraded in 2012, and hasn't improved. www.mercurynews.com/ci_20268745/credit-downgrade-cost-san-jose-350-000-year

[Shooby]

What's that great sucking sound I am hearing?

[Deleted]

Dec 12, 2014 23:43:54 GMT -5 Shooby said:

What's that great sucking sound I am hearing?

Someone turned on a Dyson?


ETA: not sure what that has to do with the thread though... 

[djAdvocate]

Dec 12, 2014 23:35:05 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

San Jose was downgraded in 2012, and hasn't improved. www.mercurynews.com/ci_20268745/credit-downgrade-cost-san-jose-350-000-year

dude.  i know my state.  being downgraded does not equate to bankruptcy.  San Jose sucks, but it is not Stockton.  i live less than 100 miles from this place.  i have two good friends that live there.  i know what is going on, thanks.

PS- i like the merc.  very good paper.  they reported on Iran-Contra very well during the Reagan administration. 

edit: i see that Fresno is also on that list.  Fresno is in way bigger trouble than San Jose.  oh, and that $350k in cost?  it is .04% of San Jose's budget.

[djAdvocate]

Dec 12, 2014 23:43:54 GMT -5 Shooby said:

What's that great sucking sound I am hearing?

your social life? 

sorry, that was very "mean girl" of me. 

[Deleted]

Dec 12, 2014 23:24:48 GMT -5 AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP said:

www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/15/ten-california-cities-in-distress/2076217/

How's USA Today? Ought to qualify as right up the middle. Yes, it's from 2013, but if you go online and look at the actual budget / balance sheet-- things have not improved.

www.sanjoseca.gov/index.aspx?NID=183 (annual reports, then financial statements are at the bottom)

COULD be in bankruptcy does not equal near bankruptcy.

[Shooby]

Dec 13, 2014 0:23:42 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Dec 12, 2014 23:43:54 GMT -5 Shooby said:

What's that great sucking sound I am hearing?

your social life? 

sorry, that was very "mean girl" of me. 

I always knew you had an inner Mean girl. Go figure.

[Shooby]

California cant wait to become Detroit!

[zibazinski]

Well, if people don't lose jobs over this more power to them.

[zibazinski]

Detroit still speaks English, sort of.

[Shooby]

Of course they will lose jobs. And, when in a few years, there isn't a lot of local business, well golly gee, wonder why that is?

[Angel!]

Dec 13, 2014 7:28:52 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Well, if people don't lose jobs over this more power to them.

I doubt many will lose jobs at all. This only applies to contractors that work for the county if I understand it correctly. So if your company does very little work for the county and you don't want to raise wages, then you just cut them as a client. If you do a lot of work, you raised prices on the county and they will pay for the increase themselves.

It is a very high cost of living area, so I would think most contactors don't have employees that are paid much less anyway. Maybe the janitor service that cleans their buildings will be in trouble. But consulting firms, construction firms, they aren't going to have min wage employees.

[Shooby]

Yup. They just raise prices and the taxpayers foot the bill for the companies contracted to the county.

[OldCoyote]

Dec 13, 2014 8:29:44 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Yup. They just raise prices and the taxpayers foot the bill for the companies contracted to the county.

You got it,  Then complain that your taxes are out of sight.

[djAdvocate]

Dec 13, 2014 7:08:51 GMT -5 Shooby said:

California cant wait to become Detroit!

a single industry midwest city?

right.

[djAdvocate]

Dec 13, 2014 7:42:26 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Of course they will lose jobs. And, when in a few years, there isn't a lot of local business, well golly gee, wonder why that is?

not all jobs are portable.  for example, fast food will still be served in San Jose, no matter what the labor cost.

i am also guessing well over half the population makes over $19.06, so those jobs are clearly not going anywhere, either.

so, what is to lose?  we'll see.  but chances are that prices will be adjusted to compensate, and everyone will just learn to live with it.

OH THE HORROR!!!!

[djAdvocate]

Dec 13, 2014 8:29:44 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Yup. They just raise prices and the taxpayers foot the bill for the companies contracted to the county.

there are two ways to run things in the US:

either businesses keep people out of poverty or the government does.

for 200 years, we had it about right.  the last 50, however........

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Dec 13, 2014 7:29:47 GMT -5 zibazinski said:

Detroit still speaks English, sort of.

Though the Muslim call to prayer in Dearborn can be heard in Arabic all the way to Detroit.

[zibazinski]

That's been an issue since the early 70's at least.

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Dec 13, 2014 13:32:50 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Dec 13, 2014 7:42:26 GMT -5 Shooby said:

Of course they will lose jobs. And, when in a few years, there isn't a lot of local business, well golly gee, wonder why that is?

not all jobs are portable.  for example, fast food will still be served in San Jose, no matter what the labor cost.

Not true.  There will come a point in which residents of San Jose will have to go elsewhere for goods and services.  If these costs cannot successfully be passed on to the residents of San Jose, then the people of San Jose will have opted to travel rather than to pay the inflated costs.  
i am also guessing well over half the population makes over $19.06, so those jobs are clearly not going anywhere, either.

Median wage is $80,000, so yeah- basically half the population makes more than double that amount.

so, what is to lose?  we'll see.  but chances are that prices will be adjusted to compensate, and everyone will just learn to live with it.

Prices will be adjusted to compensate?  In other words, the additional income makes no difference.  You're basically admitting it's inflationary.

OH THE HORROR!!!!

CA is already an exodus state, and this will ultimately spur productive people and businesses to move outside of San Jose, and as long as they're packing up-- it may dawn on them to just leave CA altogether.

[Value Buy]

dj, what is the average hourly rate of the county employees?

Are they paying all their workers this new minimum rate?