UC Berkeley Offers 2nd Opinion On San Francisco's Proposed $15-An-Hour Minimum Wage
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— UC Berkeley researchers have given a second opinion on how raising San Francisco's minimum wage to $15 an hour would impact the city and its employment rate.
This new study gives a different view than a more grim report released in July by the San Francisco City Controller's office. They said raising San Francisco's minimum wage to $15 an hour would result in the loss of 15,000 jobs, but predicted the impact would be reduced by job gains elsewhere.
Ken Jacobs the Chair of UC Berkeley's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, said that methodology was wrong and that the higher wage will have no measurable impact on employment or worker hours.
"We found that about 142,000 workers, or nearly a quarter of the workforce in San Francisco, would receive pay increases under the law; average annual earnings for those who receive the increases to about $28,000 a year. That's fairly substantial," he said.
Restaurants would raise prices to meet the higher payroll and better pay would benefit employers by increasing worker productively, he added.
"Raising the minimum wage is a smart policy that will impact a large number of workers in a way that would really help them get by in the city," Jacobs said.
The $15 an hour minimum-wage proposal is on the San Francisco ballot in November.