City Council committee advances $25 minimum wage for San Diego tourism industry

[rcjordan]

https://www.kpbs.org/news/economy/2025/02/27/city-council-committee-advances-25-minimum-wage-for-san-diego-tourism-industry

[littleman]

One has to keep in mind how little $25/hour is in a major city in California.  In  SD a small studio apartment can be $2.5k/month. In my area it's around $3k/month. Just renting a room can be $1.5k/month, which breaks down to just shy of half of one's paycheck after taxes with full time employment.

[ergophobe]

I don't understand sector pricing though.

I'm guessing that it has to do with political clout and either which unions are powerful or which industries most fear unionization.

That said, a lot of German contracts are negotiated on a sector by sector basis rather than a company by company basis like US union contracts. If enough sectors manage to get higher wages, then it tends to pull other wages up in a high-employment economy.

Still, I find it odd that you would single out fast food or tourism or tipped employees to give a special wage or tax break.

[littleman]

>If enough sectors manage to get higher wages, then it tends to pull other wages up in a high-employment economy.

I think there is evidence of that in California.  Since fast food restaurants went to $20/hour there has been gradual pressure for other retail type jobs to go up to that level.

[ergophobe]

Related: Denver's restaurants are dying
https://www.slowboring.com/p/denver-piece

TL;DR - a low tipped wage credit means that servers are doing great from minimum wage hikes, but at the expense of other positions.

I saw this a lot in the hotel industry - there is a front-of-house/back-of-house split that tends to also break down as young, attractive, white, well-spoken vs everyone else who gets sent to back-of-the-house.

"When you force an operator to give raises every January 1 to the group of people who's already making the most money, it chokes our ability to give a salaried person or an hourly cook a raise," Ms. Tronco said. "I'm working so hard to just keep it open, and try to make sure that my 34 employees stay employed, and that they get paid every week."

Ms. Tronco said her servers are averaging $38 to $50 an hour — more than what she or her executive chef make when broken down hourly. She pays kitchen staff $23 to $25 per hour