A single, childless adult living in San Francisco today needs to earn $15.66 per hour to cover housing ($1,504 per month) taxes, food, health care, transportation and other necessities, according to the Insight Center for Community Economic Development's "self-sufficiency calculator" ( http://bit.ly/1ltbrvM). In the first quarter of 2013, an estimated 8.8 percent of workers in the San Francisco metro area (which also includes San Mateo and Marin counties) were in occupations with an average wage less than $12.25 per hour, according to California Employment Development Department data. The Institute on Aging, a nonprofit agency that provides home care and support services, pays workers at least $12.26 an hour, per its union contract. In the restaurant industry, "it's true that most of the back-of-the house staff makes more than minimum wage," because good ones are hard to find, says Gwyneth Borden, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. The restaurant association tried to exempt tipped workers from the proposed increase, which would be legal as long as their base wage was above the state minimum wage, currently $8 per hour. Critics argue that a minimum wage increase is a blunt instrument because it would help teens from middle- or upper-income families, and people who work in San Francisco but live outside the city. Looking only at restaurants, he found that about three-fourths of the wage increase got passed on to customers in the form of higher menu prices and one-quarter was offset by reduced turnover. Based on his past study, Reich predicts that if the new proposal passes, There will be a one-time restaurant price increase, which will absorbed by customers whose income has been going up faster than the people working there.
Reported by SFGate 10 hours ago.
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