It’s the last phase of Proposition 14, which voters passed in 2014 and raised the wage in increments of $1.00 through 2018.

“Those who say we have to choose between economic growth and fair pay are wrong,” City Administrator Naomi Kelly said in a statement. “We in San Francisco have proven that these elements aren’t exclusive of each other and, in fact, they compliment each other.”

And while “Fight for 15” advocates are cheering the move, the increase does little to address the cost of living concerns in the Bay Area, a region which continues to see a heavy exodus to neighboring states.

For example, a recent analysis by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that someone would have to work around 160 hours per week at $15 per hour to be able to afford an average 2 bedroom apartment in San Francisco.

Furthermore, the income level for a family of four to qualify to low income assistance is now over $117,000 in the region, according to findings from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Across all of California, the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,750 and a two-bedroom averages $2,110. Average home prices in the state have surpassed $500,000 – and in places like Santa Clara County it’s well over $1 million.

Additionally, experts are noting that the wage hike may actually hurt low-wage workers, arguing that such an increase comes with trade-offs for poor residents. While the hourly wage may increase, it’s also likely to force businesses to cut prices – and possibly the hours of their workers.

 “San Francisco already has a major problem facing low wage workers,” George Mason economist Michael Farren explained on C-SPAN. “So the additional cost of $15 hour minimum wage and the effect it’s going to have on prices isn’t going to help low-wage workers very much.”

Minimum wage savings for the state mean multi-million dollar burden for counties

Good morning. TGIT. We have some good news and some bad news. 

The good news: Last year’s deal to increase the minimum wage won’t cost the state nearly as much as was projected. 

The bad news: Providing certain health care services just became way more expensive for counties. 

The Brown administration is ending a program that coordinated care for seniors and low-income families because it was no longer cost effective. As a result, the state will save $626 million this year, forcing counties to pick up the check. 

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• Foreclosures: “New housing data show foreclosure activity in California dropped to an 11-year low in 2016. But the state is still working through a backlog of homes purchased with bad loans during the last housing bubble.” Capital Public Radio has more. 

• School bond oversight: “Gov. Jerry Brown, who last year registered deep skepticism about the $9 billion statewide school construction bond, is withholding the proceeds until the Legislature approves more rigorous independent auditing procedures.” The Sacramento Bee has more. 

• Battle with the feds: “California is friendly territory, but a national defunding push worries Planned Parenthood,” writes the Los Angeles Times. 

• Drought: “A year ago this week, only 3 percent of the state was classified as not being in drought conditions. But now because of this winter’s soaking, 42 percent is.” The San Jose Mercury News has more. 

Legislature:

• Back on Friday. 

Gov. Brown:

• Speaking at MLK breakfast for the Legislative Black Caucus at 8 a.m. in Sacramento. 

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The bad news: Providing certain health care services just became way more expensive for the counties. 

The Brown administration is ending a program that coordinated care for seniors and low-income families because it was no longer cost effective. As a result, the state will save $626 million this year, forcing counties to pick up the check. 

The Coordinated Care Initiative allows Californians who are eligible for both Medi-Cal and Medicare to “receive medical, behavioral health, long‑term services and supports, and home and community‑based services coordinated through a single health plan,” according to the budget document released Tuesday. 

But the law allows the Department of Finance to end CCI if it is deemed no longer cost effective. Federal regulations requiring in-home caregivers to receive overtime after 40 hours per week drove the cost of the program up with the minimum wage hike.

Last year, state analysts estimated the plan to gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour would cost the state $4 billion by 2021. Cutting the CCI program will lower the state’s burden to $2.6 billion, according to a Department of Finance official. 

Cutting the program will shift the labor costs onto the counties, which is estimated to cost more than $4.4 billion over the next six years, according to the California State Association of Counties. 

 “This would be devastating to counties all over the state,” CSAC President and Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson said in a statement. “We undoubtedly would have to make cuts in other vital social services to cover these costs.”

“Four years ago, voters approved Proposition 30, which raised the income tax significantly on the wealthiest Californians and raised the sales tax a tiny bit on everyone,” Capital Public Radio recently recalled. “That quarter-of-a-cent increase equated to paying an additional $0.01 on a $4 coffee; $1 on a $400 television; and $100 on a $40,000 car.” But on Election Day 2016, that changed. “Voters extended Proposition 30’s income tax increases in [November’s] presidential election with Proposition 55 — but that initiative allowed the Prop. 30 sales tax hike to expire.”

The shift means California’s sales tax is the state’s only tax to be decreased this year, from 7.5 percent to 7.25 percent. As the U-T reported, “Some local jurisdictions tack on their own assessments, so residents in certain areas will still pay more than the statewide rate.” In certain parts of the state, like the San Francisco Bay Area, voters allowed substantial increases. 

From spending to taxing

Prop. 30 ushered in the so-called Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012, as California voters threw their support behind increased spending on state education and benefits. “The act increased sales tax and income tax rates to help maintain funding levels for public schools and colleges and pay for programs for seniors and low-income families,” U-T San Diego noted. “The additional revenue also provided local governments with a constitutional guarantee of funding to comply with a new state law that shifted lower-level offenders from state prisons to county jails.”

Some municipalities, particularly in parts of the state that joined a Democrat-led initiative to hike minimum wages, opted to raise more funds. “Bay Area voters this year generously approved taxing themselves in large numbers — and they’ll feel the pinch at the cash register in 2017 as local sales taxes across Silicon Valley take effect even as a state tax expires,” according to the San Jose Mercury News. 

“As California cities struggle to fund basic city services like police, fire protection, libraries and parks, they’re increasingly turning to voters for help. And voters this year said ‘yes’ to tax hikes in at least eight Bay Area cities in exchange for fewer potholes, less traffic and more cops, including San Jose, Newark, Martinez and Pleasant Hill.”

Pension pinch

For years, public pension costs have steadily built pressure on Golden State cities. In some areas, the problem has become egregious: The city of El Monte, in Southern California, shelled out 28 percent of its general fund to pay retirement costs. “Among California’s 10 largest cities, only San Jose paid as much toward retirement costs relative to its general fund. Los Angeles spends 20 percent of its general fund on retirement costs,” the Los Angeles Times revealed. “El Monte’s outsize pension bill weighs heavily on the San Gabriel Valley city of 116,000, where half the residents were born outside the United States and a quarter live below the poverty line.” 

Meanwhile, CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, has struggled with its own imbalanced budgets. “CalPERS has 65 cents for every dollar that it needs to provide pension benefits for almost two million people,” Fox Business recently recalled. “CalPERS pension debt is roughly $164 billion and mostly likely will grow larger in coming years.” 

In an effort to come to grips with the problem, the fund reduced its forecasted return on investment from 7.5 to 7 percent. “It has been paying out $5 billion more a year in benefits than it’s receiving in contributions and investment returns, not a sustainable trend,” the Fresno Bee noted in an editorial. “With investment returns averaging 4.6 percent during the past decade, some experts urged CalPERS to reduce its forecast even more.” But that would risk pushing more California cities toward bankruptcy — or toward even higher local taxes. 

A new round of targeted workplace regulations passed over the course of 2016 will take effect in the coming year, with some slated to come into law the minute the clock strikes 2017. 

Wage rules

First, Golden State businesses will face a new landscape on pay, beginning with mandated higher minimum wages. In lopsided Assembly and state Senate votes, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 3 into law this spring. Gov. Jerry Brown promptly signed the legislation. “The increases would start with a boost from $10 to $10.50 on Jan. 1,” the Associated Press confirmed. “Businesses with 25 or fewer employees would have an extra year to comply. Increases of $1 an hour would come every January until 2022. The governor could delay increases in times of budgetary or economic downturns.”

“Democrats who control both legislative chambers in California hailed the increase as a boon to more than 2 million of the state’s poorest workers. Republicans, however, echoed fears from business owners and economists that the annual increases — eventually tied to inflation — will compound California’s image as hostile to business.”

A battery of even more ambitious minimum wage rules has been implemented in patchwork fashion around California’s bigger municipalities in and around the Bay Area.  

Additionally, employers will be held to a new standard in justifying to Sacramento any disparities in pay that seem to correspond to racial or ethnic differences. “SB1063 amends Labor Code Sections 1197.5 and 1199.5 and expands protection for equal pay for ‘substantially similar work’ beyond gender to include race and ethnicity,” according to analysts at Faegre Baker Daniels. “Employees who perform ‘substantially similar work’ under similar working conditions must be paid equally, unless the employer can demonstrate that the wage differential is based on either: (1) a seniority system; (2) a merit system; (3) a system that measures earnings by quality or quantity of production; or (4) a bona fide factor other than sex, race or ethnicity (such as education, training or experience). Employers are required to demonstrate that these factors account for the entire pay differential.“

Close quarters

Beyond pay, legislators imposed additional requirements fueled by ongoing political controversies about the pace of social change. “Under AB1732, beginning March 1, all single-user toilet facilities in any business, place of public accommodation or government agency must be identified as ‘all-gender,'” as the San Francisco Chronicle reported, although multiple-toilet facilities can continue to offer men’s and women’s rooms. Nevertheless, the paper added, “the California Fair Employment and Housing Council is expected to finalize regulations early next year clarifying that employees can use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.” Some new rules targeted specific industries. With AB1289, set to take effect January 1, so-called “transportation networks” such as Lyft and Uber were barred from hiring drivers “who are registered sex offenders, violent felons or terrorists,” the Associated Press noted; that bill “will also ban people convicted in the last seven years of assault, domestic violence or driving under the influence. Companies could be fined up to $5,000 per banned driver.”

A third set of laws focused in on the intersection of criminal justice and employment law. In an effort to boost awareness of standing law, AB2337 put the onus on employers to notify employees “at time of hire of their rights to take protected leave when victimized by domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking,” according to The Recorder. “By July 1, 2017, AB2337 will further require the California labor commissioner to develop a form employers may elect to use to comply with this notice requirement.” AB1843, meanwhile, made it presumptively easier for Californians convicted before adulthood to land a job, barring employers “from asking about or considering, for purposes of hiring or any condition of employment, any information about the employee’s/applicant’s arrests, convictions or other proceedings involving juvenile court,” as The Recorder added. 

Here’s a sampling of some of the significant new laws from last session:

Register your ammo purchases: Californian gun owners will need to deal with a variety of new gun-control limitations after the governor signed a broad package of bills – and voters approved Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gun-control initiative on Nov. 8. The most potentially far reaching effects will come from the state’s approval of Proposition 63, which has various restrictions and a roll-out of implementation dates over a few years.

Beginning July 1, 2017, the state will implement a ban on high-capacity magazines and will require owners to report any lost or stolen weapons. The much-publicized requirement that ammo buyers pass background checks won’t go into effect until Jan. 1, 2018.

Higher minimum wages and more unpaid leave: “The statewide minimum wage goes from $10 to $10.50 an hour for businesses with 26 or more employees — a rate that will rise to $15 by 2022,” as the Mercury-News explained. That wage hike comes from Senate Bill 3. “Assembly Bill 2393 gives up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave to all K-12 and community college employees, including classified workers and community college faculty,” the newspaper reported.

Restrictions on police use of asset forfeiture: Senate Bill 443 was one of the last bills from last session that the governor signed, but it is widely viewed as one of the most significant changes in state law. Before the new law went into effect, police agencies had the ability to take the cash, cars and even homes from people even if they weren’t convicted of any crime. The authorities needed simply to claim the property was used in the commission of a drug crime. California had fairly tough restrictions in place, but local and state police agencies would partner with federal authorities under the “equitable sharing” program and then they would operate under looser federal law.

As the Drug Policy Alliance explains, “Starting on January 1, 2017, California law will require a conviction prior to forfeiture in any state case where the items seized are cash under $40,000 or other property such as homes and vehicles regardless of value.” If local or state agencies work with the feds, they could only share in the proceeds if an underlying conviction were obtained. The final compromise still allows law enforcement to keep proceeds of more than $40,000 in cash only – a provision which caused major law enforcement groups to drop their opposition.

Higher fees from the DMV … and more: Two new laws boost the fees for DMV registrations by $10 and for an environmental license plate by the same amount. Another DMV-related law requires drivers to restrain children 2 years or under in a rear-facing car seat unless they weigh 40 pounds or more. Drivers will need to pay attention to a new law dealing with hand-held devices. “Driving a motor vehicle while holding and operating a handheld wireless telephone or a wireless electronic communications device will be prohibited, unless the device is mounted on a vehicle’s windshield or is mounted/affixed to a vehicle’s dashboard or center console in a manner that does not hinder the driver’s view of the road,” according to the agency.

Gaining the ‘right to try’: California became the 32nd state to pass so-called “right to try” legislation, which allows terminally ill people to try experimental drugs that have yet to pass the federal Food and Drug Administration’s full battery of tests. Supporters argued that many people die while waiting for drugs to clear that long and cumbersome process. After Senate amendments, Assembly Bill 1668 includes the caveat that “a health benefit plan, except to the extent the plan provided coverage, is not liable for any outstanding debt related to the treatment or lack of insurance for the treatment.”

Beer and wine at barbershops: Assembly Bill 1322 passed overwhelmingly in both houses of the Legislature. This bill allows beauty salons and barber shops to serve their clients limited quantities of beer or wine at no extra charge without obtaining a license or permit from the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control,” according to the Assembly analysis. The new law still allows local governments to impose restrictions on this practice.

Rescuing Fido from a hot car: Assembly Bill 797 reduces liability for citizens who break a car window to save an animal that is closed in a hot car – provided they first try calling the authorities and the authorities haven’t responded quickly enough.

Legalizing lane-splitting: Anyone who drives on California’s vast network of freeways has noticed motorcyclists’ habit of “lane-splitting,” as they drive between the cars that occupy the lanes. The law had required motorcyclists to ride “as nearly as practical entirely within a single lane,” even though the practice has been widely accepted. Motorcyclists have long argued that this is safer than remaining in one lane and risk being hit from behind. Assembly Bill 51 “would authorize the Department of the California Highway Patrol to develop educational guidelines relating to lane splitting in a manner that would ensure the safety of the motorcyclist, drivers, and passengers, as specified,” according to the state Legislative Counsel.

Ignore those juvenile convictions: Assembly Bill 1843 “Prohibits employers from asking an applicant for employment to disclose information concerning or related to an arrest, detention, processing, diversion, supervision, adjudication, or court disposition that occurred while the person was subject to the process and jurisdiction of juvenile court law, or seek or utilize any such information as a factor in determining any condition of employment,” according to the Assembly analysis. This was a contentious issue that passed on largely partisan lines (Democrats supported; Republicans opposed) given business-community concerns about their ability to screen job applicants.

You must be 21 to smoke or vape: Earlier in the year, the governor signed a package of smoking bills that, most significantly, raises the smoking age to 21. It also raised the age for vaping to 21. That last provision was particularly controversial because some argue e-cigarettes are a safer way for smokers to break their dangerous habit. Those laws went into effect in June.

Offering showers for the homeless: Assembly Bill 1995 would require community colleges that have shower facilities to allow enrolled homeless students to use those showers.

More bathroom choices for the transgendered: California passed a law, Assembly Bill 1772, that requires all businesses and public agencies with single-toilet bathrooms to make them available to people of all genders – a bill viewed more as a symbolic measure offered in the thick of the national debate over bathrooms for transgendered people.

The new Legislature will be back in full swing after the new year.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Good morning.

A new report on the economic forecasts and past performances of the states casts a grim view of California’s outlook, but shows past performance has been more middle-of-the-road.

The study, by the right-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council, compiled 15 measures, like various tax rates, minimum wage and right-to-work status, to determine that California ranked 46 out of 50 in terms of economic outlook.

But the Golden State ranked 31st in economic performance, which was determined by cumulative growth (or loss) in GDP, non-farm payroll employment and absolute domestic migration. The latter dragged down the overall performance, as more than 1.2 million Americans left the state over a 10-year period — the second largest cumulative loss.

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

– Many in the state are already feeling the shock wave from the increase in the minimum wage, as businesses, labor advocates and political analysts have all begun to shift strategies and tactics as a result, reports CalWatchdog.

– The Voice of San Diego looks at how the increased minimum wage will affect nonprofits, which are put in an awkward position between supporting increased pay for low-wage workers and being forced to make cuts or pull in more cash.

– A solid majority of voters favor taxing the rich to fund health care and education, according to The San Jose Mercury News. Sixty-two percent of respondents to a recent Public Policy Institute of California poll suggested they favor a 12-year extension of Prop. 30, which increases income tax on earners of $250,000 or more to help pay for education and health care. Proponents are pushing to get the extension on the November ballot.

– More on the Prop. 30 extension here and here.

– CalPERS, the state’s pension fund for public employees, approved another round of rate increases, according to The Sacramento Bee. “The state’s contribution will increase by an estimated $602 million, to $5.4 billion a year. School districts will be charged an additional $342 million, to a total of nearly $1.7 billion a year,” The Bee writes.

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article72973417.html#storylink=cpy

Assembly:

– In at 9. Several hearings.

Senate:

– In at 9. Lots of budget talk.

Gov. Brown:

– No public events scheduled, but according to the Gov. Brown’s office, he’s “left the state.” Brown is scheduled to attend a climate change event tomorrow in New York at the United Nations Headquarters.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @GPestt01 @LeslieFulbright

Confronted with an impending hike to $15 in the California minimum wage, businesses, labor advocates and political analysts have all begun to shift strategies and tactics. Given current trends, the combined impact could be a smaller, more unionized workforce — that doesn’t always see the benefits wage activists have promised.

The consequences will be quick and could be dramatic. “Most state raises over the past decade, when there have been any, ranged from 1 percent to 3 percent annually. The law Gov. Jerry Brown signed will increase bottom-rung pay roughly 10 percent per year starting in January,” as the Sacramento Bee reported.

Manufacturing flight

One immediate result of the hikes has already appeared in Southern California, where the garment industry faces an especially rough road. Sung Won Sohn, former director of apparel company Forever 21 and economist at Cal State Channel Islands, told the Los Angeles Times a veritable “exodus has begun,” with manufacturers already tempted to shift garment production overseas to retreat from the Golden State still further. “The garment industry is gradually shrinking and that trend will likely continue.”

“In the 1990s, as borders opened up, foreign competitors began snatching up business from Southland garment factories. Eventually, many big brands opted to leave the region in favor of cheaper locales. Guess Jeans, which epitomized a sexy California look, moved production to Mexico and South America. Just a few years ago, premium denim maker Hudson Jeans began shifting manufacturing to Mexico. Jeff Mirvis, owner of MGT Industries in Los Angeles, said outsourcing was necessary to keep up with low-cost rivals.”

The problem, particularly acute for business owners who can’t automate jobs as readily as, say, fast food restauranteurs, was encapsulated by Gov. Jerry Brown himself, who signed the $15 wage into law despite clear reservations about its economic wisdom. “Economically, minimum wages may not make sense,” he said, defending the law on moral and sociopolitical grounds. A high minimum wage, Brown claimed, “binds the community together and makes sure that parents can take care of their kids in a much more satisfactory way.”

Incentives in tension

According to critics of the change, the tension involved in using poor economic choices to encourage good moral ones has driven labor unions themselves toward a predictable, if hypocritical, shift in their own policy objectives. Many of the same unions that agitated for a higher wage “have been quietly — and often successfully — lobbying cities to let employers who hire union workers pay them less than the mandated minimum,” as Quartz observed. “Unions say it gives them the flexibility to negotiate packages for their workers that supplant wages with health insurance and other benefits.

“Critics say that it’s a shrewd move by unions to drive up membership dues and ensure that their workers are the cheapest in town. The exemption gives cost-conscious employers little choice but to hire union, and workers who want jobs little choice but to join their local.”

At the same time, however, workers who have been rallied to the $15 cause have been swiftly pressed into service for pro-unionization demonstrations. “The demand from the original strikes in 2012 was $15 and a union,” said Mary Kay Henry, international president of the SEIU, according to the Times. “Underpaid workers in California are now on a path to $15, but we think the way we can make these jobs good jobs […] is through a union.”

In an added twist, some economists defending the wage hikes have raised the question of whether subsequent job losses are a price worth paying. Gov. Brown, in fact, has referred favorably to that view. “We understand that this can be difficult,” he said, as the Washington Post recalled. “But the fact is that there’s a principle called the living family wage, which is a doctrine that has been around for a long time, since probably before the 1900s, which is that you can’t expect someone to work if the wages for that work can’t support a family.”

That’s what happened in 2006 when Arnold Schwarzenegger worked with legislative leaders to shape Assembly Bill 32, the landmark law forcing a shift to cleaner, costlier sources of energy. And it’s what happened in the last month with Jerry Brown and the bill increasing the state’s minimum wage steadily until it reaches $15 an hour in 2022, which Brown signed Monday. A provision that allows future governors to suspend an increase in bad economic times was included at Brown’s insistence:

Brown had warned a $15-an-hour wage must be done carefully, noting costs to employers and the state. But with a measure heading for the November ballot, he negotiated with unions and other advocates to include provisions that allow governors to postpone an increase if the economy falters.

 

Those provisions would allow governors to suspend annual wage increases short of $15 if officials project that the state’s budget reserves will be in the red, or if employment and sales tax revenue decline. Governors would need to decide each September whether to suspend increases coming the following January.

That’s from the Sacramento Bee.

AB32’s escape hatch was never used

But will this escape hatch ever be used? The history of AB32 suggests not. Schwarzenegger was adamant that there must be a way that the law could be suspended, as the Los Angeles Times reported in an Aug. 31, 2006, story about negotiations over the law:

For his part, Schwarzenegger won the ability for the governor to suspend the rules for as much as a year in cases of “extraordinary circumstances, catastrophic events or threat of significant economic harm.”

But in the years that followed, California had among its roughest economic stretches since the Depression. Unemployment, which averaged 4.9 percent in 2006, went to 5.3 percent in 2007, 7.2 percent in 2008, 11.3 percent in 2009 and 12.4 percent in 2010. Fewer Californians had jobs in 2010 than in 2000 — even as the state’s population went from 33.9 million to 37.3 million.

Business interests who said higher energy costs put California at a competitive disadvantage implored Schwarzenegger to suspend AB32. They eventually backed Proposition 23, a 2010 ballot measure that sought but failed to suspend the landmark law on greenhouse gases.

Not only did Schwarzenegger reject the idea that AB32 had an economic downside, he promoted the idea that it would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and touted the claim that California would inspire the world to adopt similar laws. Republican critics said he was more concerned about his legacy than Californians struggling in the recession.

If Brown invokes the clause that suspends the law steadily increasing the minimum wage in coming years, that too would muddy his legacy as the governor of the first U.S. state to have a $15 minimum wage law. If the person who succeeds him as governor in January 2019 suspends the law, that also would muddy California’s image as a bold, progressive state going places no state has gone before.

The Legislature passed it, the governor said he’ll sign it, and so a $15-per-hour minimum wage is all but a done deal.

The measure, which raises the wage from $10 per hour incrementally until 2022 and 2023 (depending on the size of the business), was approved in both chambers of the Legislature on Thursday, and Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown issued a statement of support immediately after.

Both chambers debated the measure, with proponents and opponents presenting oft-cited arguments. CalWatchdog covered the battle lines in detail in February, when two union-backed initiatives were vying to make the November ballot.

Debating the policy

Proponents of the wage increase argue businesses will ultimately absorb much of the increased labor costs, workers will have more money to put back in the economy, and the increased wages will exceed inflation in terms of buying power.

Opponents argue the inflation will reduce the purchasing power of the dollar and offset the increase in pay. They also argue the minimum wage is meant to be introductory or temporary and a more effective solution is increased opportunity for advancement. Opponents argue smaller, seasonal and low profit-margin businesses (like restaurants) will be forced to cut jobs and invest in labor-saving technology while larger companies will flee the state looking for a friendlier business climate.

Politics

The measure actually stalled last year in the Legislature over concerns that the wage was increasing too much too soon. Earlier this year, Gov. Brown warned in his budget proposal that an increase to $15 per hour would raise the state’s labor expenses by $4 billion.

But when one of the two initiatives qualified for the ballot a little over a week ago, Brown cut a deal with the union leaders that slowed the increase ladder and added “off ramps” to pause increases in tough economic times. The deal was announced Monday.

Brown was in a bind, as the measure seemed sure to pass on the November ballot. Polling showed Californians were in favor of the increase, presidential-cycle turnouts are usually favorable to Democrats, who largely support the increase, and the success of Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has campaigned heavily on an increase, showed his message was resonating with voters.

“The basic economic problems of a minimum wage haven’t gone away, but political considerations were too strong to resist,” said John J. Pitney, a Roy P. Crocker professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College.

Slow down

Prior to the vote, the left-leaning editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, which called Brown’s compromise “good,” urged lawmakers to slow down and consider all options, arguing that little is known about the impact of a 90 percent increase over a nine-year period (which includes two prior increases), floating a regional wage increase instead.

“Lawmakers are not doing their due diligence if they don’t take the time to analyze the alternatives to a blanket $15 minimum wage, or at least take steps to mitigate the potential impacts,” wrote the board.

Brown supports

After the bill passed, Gov. Brown repeated his comments from earlier in the week calling the deal “responsible” and “careful,” and said he’d sign the measure on Monday in Los Angeles.

“California is proving once again that it can get things done and help people get ahead,” Brown said in a statement. “This plan raises the minimum wage in a careful and responsible way and provides some flexibility if economic and budgetary conditions change.”

The first increase of 50 cents per hour goes into effect at the beginning of 2017.