Irvine leaders will consider a substantial boost in pay for the city’s lowest wage workers.
The City Council is set to consider an ordinance on Tuesday, May 13, proposed by Mayor Larry Agran that would raise the minimum wage for full-time city employees from the state minimum of $16.50 per hour to $25 per hour.
Part-time city employees would make a minimum of $20 per hour.
Contractors that enter into a contract with the city to provide services with an estimated value of $200,000 or more over a year would have to pay their employees assigned to Irvine at least $20 per hour, as well.
“The state minimum wage of $16.50 is nowhere near a liveable wage here in Irvine,” Agran said in a phone interview Monday. “In fact, it would probably take two people working minimum wage full-time jobs to afford an apartment here in Irvine.”
The median cost of rent in Irvine, one of the nation’s hottest housing markets, is $2,749, according to the city. That’s higher than the take-home pay of a full-time minimum wage employee who works 40 hours per week.
“This proposal is simply to be responsive to the realities of what it takes to be able to live in Irvine on what you can earn in Irvine,” Agran said.
He said the ordinance would help more than 150 city workers, plus seasonal employees and contractors.
“Summertime help with recreation programs would be getting $20 an hour, for example,” he said.
Around 2010, Irvine implemented a city minimum wage higher than California’s, but a previous City Council eliminated that ordinance about 10 years ago, Agran said
“This would put Irvine back in its leadership role in this regard,” he added.