By Howard Fine
For restaurant operators, retailers and others, the new year will ring in an unpleasant shock as California’s minimum wage jumps for the second time in two years.
This time, the minimum wage is going to $8 an hour from $7.50. A year earlier, it went from $6.50 to $7.50.
Thousands of restaurant owners throughout Orange County, and businesses in other industries, will face a stark choice: raise prices, cut back employee hours or take home less profit as round two of the minimum-wage hike kicks in.
California’s minimum wage will be the highest of any state in the nation except Washington, where the wage rises to $8.07 on Tuesday.
For California businesses, the increase in the minimum wage is by far the most sweeping law taking effect next week.
Unlike past new years in which employers were hit by an onslaught of burdensome regulations, in 2008, the flow of new laws with significant impact on business has slowed to a trickle.
For that, employers can thank Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who vetoed every bill that business interests dubbed a “job killer.” In other cases, his veto threats prompted other bills to die in the Legislature.
“It was a good defensive year for businesses,” said John Kabateck, executive director of the California chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business.
For more on this story, see the Dec. 31 edition of the Business Journal. Fine is a staff reporter at the Los Angeles Business Journal.
