Voters in Alameda County, California, will not be voting on whether to raise the local minimum wage to $30 an hour this November, as originally planned. The county’s Board of Commissioners voted on Tuesday to delay county-wide voting on the proposed wage increase — which would be the highest minimum wage in the country by nearly $9 — until an economic impact study is implemented.
Now, voters will decide on the fate of the proposed minimum wage in March 2028. If it is eventually passed, the $30 wage will be phased in gradually for unincorporated areas of the county, with larger employees reaching the $30 requirement by 2030, medium-size businesses by 2035, and smaller businesses by 2037. The change would nearly double the current county-level minimum wage of $17.76.
According to local news reports, proponents of the bill have spoken out against the delay, because they have collected more than enough signatures — nearly 120,000 — to qualify for a spot on the ballot.
“The only thing they can do is delay it and so we already won,” One Fair Wage president and cofounder Saru Jayaraman told NBC News. “It’s going to be on the ballot. It’s polling above 71%, it’s going to pass. The only question is when.”
However, critics of the proposed minimum wage argue that it will negatively impact businesses, which won’t be able to keep up with the increased labor costs.
“The Board of Supervisors is right to want to study the impacts of the proposed $30 wage, and analysts shouldn’t ignore the impact drastic wage hikes have had in their own backyard,” Rebekah Paxton, research director at the Employment Policies Institute, said in a statement.
California has considered and passed controversial minimum wage laws before, including 2024’s AB 1228 law, which specifically targeted quick-service restaurants and raised the minimum wage to $20 per hour. The following year, Bureau of Labor Statistics data found that the 33.3% wage increase resulted in almost 16,000 industry job losses.
A special election for Alameda County’s $30 minimum wage could be held as early as next year once the economic impact study has been released.
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