Supervisor Sheila Kuehl

Sheila Kuehl will ask her fellow members of the Board of Supervisors Tuesday to approve a minimum wage hike that would apply to all businesses and nonprofits in unincorporated Los Angeles County.

The plan would not affect businesses and employees in the city of Santa Clarita, but it would affect those in Stevenson Ranch, Castaic, Agua Dulce and other areas outside of city limits.

Kuehl’s proposal would circumvent a study the board ordered in March when it decided to find out what the effects of a minimum wage hike would be before it pulled the trigger. The study is being completed.

Rather than wait, Kuehl is asking for an ordinance that would raise the minimum wage annually until it hits $15 in five years, and then increase annually with the Consumer Price Index.

“The fact that many County residents, despite working full-time, earn too little in wages to cover even their bare necessities such as safe housing, healthy food, adequate clothing and basic medical care, is intolerable in a county that values equity and fair reward,” Kuehl states in her motion.

Businesses and nonprofits with 26 or more employees – and the county itself – would be required to pay the following (all dates effective July 1): $10.50 in 2016, $12 in 2017, $13.25 in 2018, $14.25 in 2019 and $15 in 2020.

Businesses and nonprofits with fewer than 26 employees would have another year to gear up. The minimum wage would be: $10.50 in 2017, $12 in 2018, $13.25 in 2019, $14.25 in 2020 and $15 in 2021.

Thereafter, the minimum wage will increase annually based on the average Consumer Price Index over the previous 20 years.

Critics have questioned Kuehl’s haste in bring the minimum wage proposal forward rather than waiting for the final results from the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.’s study.

In her motion, Kuehl claims that the LAEDC “has finished its review” of previous studies, and that those studies predict “no loss of jobs … even by the most conservative study.”