City officials have chosen University of California Berkeley economists to study the impacts of the proposed $15.25 per hour minimum wage hike in Los Angeles.
The UC Berkeley researchers were one of four teams who responded to a request for proposals by the city officials to perform the study.
Berkeley did a previous study that indicated Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $13.25 per hour by 2017 would be beneficial. The City Council is now debating a proposal that would increase the wage even further to $15.25 per hour by 2019.
UC Berkeley offered to do the study for just under $85,000, with the maximum cost for the study capped at $100,000, according to the city’s Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso.
The study would require a quick turnaround, as it is due by early February.
The other firms that applied were the Economic Roundtable, a nonprofit that gave a favorable assessment to a wage hike to $15.37 per hour for many hotel workers set to start in July, and Beacon Economics, which blasted the hotel wage hike, with researchers saying it would result in lost jobs. The consulting firm Applied Development Economics also was passed over for this latest study.
— City News Service