living wage

If California supports the arts, then it needs to recognize that there is no other way to demonstrate this support than through social insurance programs.

Jordan Zimmerman was once a sales associate at a local retail store, putting in 20 hours a week to help make extra money on the side as she studied at UC Berkeley.

Berkeley City Council will meet Tuesday evening to return to various agenda items ranging from a $1 million Housing Trust Fund loan to a referral establishing a living wage for city employees, as well as Berkeley Police Department's annual crime report.

The record shows that the better route for working people and their allies is the initiative. Minimum wage activists won an annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, in 11 states. Significantly, only in Vermont was a COLA achieved by a legislative body. The other 10 were won via the initiative. The reason is that legislators tend to be more conservative than the voters who elected them. It is not surprising because the business community generally finances electoral campaigns, and furthermore, once in office, the pressure to cater to business interests is enormous. That is the case even at the local level, including the City of Berkeley.

Although the state’s poorest have languished in recent years as California’s budget has been cut deeply, the State Legislature’s vote to increase the minimum wage to $10 by July 2016 is a serious sign of progress.