How do you kill an economy? You make it too expensive for the middle class. Then you ensure the poor, the young and those returning to the work force are unable to get a job. To accomplish this, all you have to do is make hiring people too expensive. Then you have to hope robots and AI can do the job.
There is a movement to make $30 the minimum wage in Los Angeles. That could be the final straw, killing off what is left of the County. You better get the phone number for U-Haul readily available.
“The event marked the public debut of a new countywide coalition that includes One Fair Wage, the National Education Association, the Center for Popular Democracy and Community Change Action. The gathering followed a weekend summit of more than 100 organizers from 20 states who met to unify a national strategy around wage justice, just weeks after the city of Los Angeles approved a $30 hourly minimum for hospitality workers ahead of the 2028 Olympics.
“We need to have a living wage for everybody who works in the United States of America, regardless of who they are, where they work or their conditions,” said Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage. “People just can’t afford to live.”
Add to this more bonds, higher taxes, failed schools—a recipe for community collapse.
Living Wage for All launches in Santa Monica with push for $30 countywide minimum
by Scott Snowden, Santa Monica Daily Press, 6/4/25 https://smdp.com/news/living-wage-for-all-coalition-launches-in-santa-monica-with-push-for-dollar30-countywide-minimum/
Labor organizers, elected officials and economic justice advocates gathered Monday at Wally’s restaurant in downtown Santa Monica to launch the Living Wage for All campaign, a coordinated effort to raise Los Angeles County’s minimum wage to $30 per hour and to build a national movement aimed at redefining compensation standards across the country.
The event marked the public debut of a new countywide coalition that includes One Fair Wage, the National Education Association, the Center for Popular Democracy and Community Change Action. The gathering followed a weekend summit of more than 100 organizers from 20 states who met to unify a national strategy around wage justice, just weeks after the city of Los Angeles approved a $30 hourly minimum for hospitality workers ahead of the 2028 Olympics.
“We need to have a living wage for everybody who works in the United States of America, regardless of who they are, where they work or their conditions,” said Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage. “People just can’t afford to live.”
Jayaraman said the MIT Living Wage Calculator shows that in Los Angeles County, a single adult with no children needs to earn at least $29.75 per hour to meet basic needs. The current minimum wage stands at $18 per hour in the city of Los Angeles and $16.50 in unincorporated parts of the county.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, one of the City officials who backed the $30 hospitality wage ordinance, said Monday’s campaign is meant to expand that victory to workers in all industries.
“If hospitality workers can win $30 an hour, then retail workers can, janitors can, restaurant workers can, everybody can,” Hernandez said. “Corporations saw what we did and now they are spending millions to lie to our people.”
She said opponents of the city’s hospitality ordinance are bankrolling a signature drive to overturn the measure, describing it as a deceptive campaign aimed at undermining frontline workers’ gains. Hernandez warned that this was part of a larger effort to stall or reverse wage progress and called on supporters to protect what she called a historic breakthrough.
“This is about wages, dignity and the future,” she said. “Nothing they own was ever built without you.”
The Living Wage for All campaign arrives amid rising concerns about affordability and political threats to safety net programs. Organizers said cuts to Medicaid and other public benefits, along with inflation and housing costs, have made the current wage structure untenable.
“We are sick and tired,” said LA County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who spoke of the severe rent burdens facing many of her constituents. “What it costs to just survive in Los Angeles County takes my breath away every day.”
Mitchell argued that wage efforts must be comprehensive and not limited to individual sectors. She criticized previous policies that excluded categories of workers, such as childcare providers and called for sustained philanthropic support to push forward policy change.
“We don’t help ourselves when we have a piecemeal, sector-by-sector approach,” she said. “It has got to be a living wage for all, together, on behalf of all workers.”
Others echoed the idea that wage justice was not only about economics, but about democracy itself. Several speakers cited low voter turnout among working-class communities as a symptom of economic exhaustion and disenfranchisement.
“If you care about saving democracy, then you must care about raising wages,” said Nina Turner, a former Ohio state senator. “You cannot be in the middle on this.”
The initiative will target both local and national wage policies and includes plans for legislation, ballot initiatives and grassroots organizing. Organizers noted that nearly half of all U.S. workers currently earn less than $25 per hour and the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 since 2009.
“Even in the MAGA sphere, there are videos circulating that their president will raise the wage to $25,” Jayaraman said. “We know that’s ridiculous, but it tells you people on all sides believe that is the minimum needed to survive.”
Speakers from the United Auto Workers, LA Forward, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and the Democratic National Committee also addressed the crowd, many offering support for a policy approach that includes excluded categories like restaurant workers, incarcerated workers, undocumented laborers and others historically left out of minimum wage laws.
“I see a world where my coworkers only have one job instead of two or three,” said Ralph Prado, a longtime restaurant worker and One Fair Wage organizer in LA County. “Then they could spend time with their family, improve themselves and participate in politics.”
One organizer from ACCE, Estuardo Mazariegos, said 80 percent of some households’ income in his South LA neighborhood goes to rent. He described his mother’s past work as a live-in domestic laborer who earned less than $1,000 per month.
“My people can’t take it anymore,” he said. “This county alone is $1.2 trillion. There should not be a single person living in poverty.”
According to Rafael Jaime, president of UAW Local 4811, which represents 48,000 academic workers at the University of California, the fight must also extend to students and researchers who live in cars while working for elite institutions.
“We cannot continue the status quo,” he said. “It is time to organize like hell and fight for a living wage.”
Organizers said the campaign will move next to drafting formal wage proposals and expanding its coalition across LA County cities and eventually into other states. They also emphasized that success will depend on public pressure, philanthropic backing and an energized electorate.
“There is enough money in this country to make sure people aren’t sleeping in their cars,” said Analilia Mejia of the Center for Popular Democracy. “But we have to lead our politicians, not the other way around.”
The minimum wage has little impact on the financial success of a community. It takes time, but everyone adjusts. Some adjust quicker than others and some just leave, but they are replaced.