California employers, did the minimum wage in your city increase this month? Of late, many California cities have chosen to increase the base rate of pay for employees.

Employers need to know if the city they have their business in has been affected because of the raising of the new wage increase.  This raise obviously will affect the rate of overtime.  This raise will also affect the rate of pay that exempt employees must be paid.

Construction Field and Automotive Repair Industries will be hit hard.

If you are in the construction field, or the automotive repair field you may be hit hard because of the raise in the employee’s rate of pay be under paying your employees per California labor law.  If this is the case, you may find yourself an easy target for a wage and hour lawsuit of which if you are paying incorrectly there is nothing you can do to defend yourself.

What does this mean if your business is located in a city that has raised its minimum wage?

  • You now need a new wage posting
  • Your base pay has just increased accordingly
  • Overtime has also increased
  • If your employees must provide their own tools to work for your company, you must make sure they are making at least double the base pay.
  • The rate that you pay your exempt salaried employees must rise accordingly.

Below is a list of Cities that have new wage increases

Keep in mind that other cities already have minimum wages that differ from the states.

The increases below all went into effect this month

  • El Cerrito: Climbs to $11.60/hour.
  • Emeryville: $13/hour if you have 55 or fewer employees; The new rate climbs to $14.82/if you employ 56 or more.
  • Los Angeles: $10.50/hour for all employers who have at least 26 employees. Hotel workers minimum wage climbs to $15.37/hour. If you employee 25 or less employees the increase is delayed until 2017.
  • Los Angeles County: $10.50/for employers who have 26 or more. As in some other cities the increase is delayed if you employee 25 or less employees.
  • Pasadena: $10.50/hour for employers with 26 or more employees. The Increase delayed is delayed for employers of 25 or fewer employees until 2017.
  • San Diego: $10.50/hour (the becomes effective July 11 or July 18, as election results are finalized]).
  • San Francisco: $13/hour.
  • Santa Monica: $10.50/hour for those employers with 26 or more employees; The rate goes up to $13.25/hour for hotel workers. This Increase is delayed to 2017 for employers with 25 or fewer employees.
  • Sunnyvale: The new  wage climbs to $11/hour.

Minimum Wage Increase

In April of 2016, Governor Brown Jr. signed the bill SB 3, a bill that will raise the base wage in California to $15 per hour by 2022. The Governor’s action means that California will become the first state in the nation to have a minimum wage of $15 per hour statewide.

On January 1, 2016, the statewide California base wage increased to $10. This means that the minimum exempt salary requirement increased to $41,600. For some cities in California, the minimum wage increase will become effective later in the year.

Don’t forget that The federal government has passed an increase to the federal minimum salary requirement, this new law goes into effect 12-2016. This will increase the minimum exempt salary to $50,440.