Los Angeles Passes New $30 Minimum Wage For Hotel And Airport Workers

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

With benefits, the effective wage is $38.35. This is inflationary…

New Minimum Wage AI Overview

Los Angeles is moving towards a $30 minimum wage for hotel and airport workers by 2028, a move supported by unions and some council members who believe it will benefit the local economy. The city council passed an ordinance to implement this wage increase, and the law is expected to take effect in stages, reaching $30 per hour by 2028. This increase will impact hotels with over 60 rooms and businesses at LAX, including airlines and concessionaires.

Los Angeles Throttles Its Tourism Industry

The Wall Street Journal comments Los Angeles Throttles Its Tourism Industry

The 2028 Summer Olympics are three years away, but host city Los Angeles is already on track to miss the podium. 

The law requires not only a $30 minimum wage by 2028, but also $8.35 hourly in required benefits spending—for an effective wage of nearly $40 an hour. An Oxford Economics study on the mandate found that 15,000 hospitality and construction jobs would be eliminated, with $342 million in construction spending halted and nearly $170 million in tax revenue lost.

Los Angeles’s Olympic bid was contingent in part on having enough hotel rooms for athletes, spectators and officials. Hotels signed agreements guaranteeing a certain number of rooms at a given rate during the Games.

Those agreements are now at risk: Eight hotels have said they will pull out of the room plan, citing the unworkable economics of the new minimum-wage law. A hotel development that would have created 395 rooms for the Olympics was canceled. More-severe consequences are expected.

Los Angeles relies on the transient occupancy tax revenue it receives each time a hotel room is booked. Fewer visitors mean less city revenue, which comes at a precarious time as Los Angeles has cut constituent services and 600 city jobs to close a $1 billion budget deficit.

Don’t tell that to the hotel union, whose co-president Kurt Petersen has dismissed the evident consequences of the wage mandate as a “Chicken Little” mentality. His own members might feel differently: The union shed almost 10,000 members last year, perhaps in part to earlier wage hikes he championed.

Mr. Petersen is looking to 2028, threatening a potential strike when current contracts expire months before the Olympics. Many hoteliers aren’t waiting around to find out. “Frankly, the market, from a broad-based buyer perspective, has been crossed off the map by investors,” one hotel executive told the Los Angeles Times.

The state has asked Congress for $40 billion to help Los Angeles recover from the fires. Legislators should consider conditioning that aid on a moratorium on any mandates, including the $30 minimum wage, that would put recovery and taxpayer dollars at risk.

Give the Cities Nothing

The last paragraph above is ridiculous. Congress should give cities nothing because all they will do with the money is waste it.

And then once they waste it, they will continue their union and DEI pandering anyway.

Soaring Minimum Wages

Does anyone recall the fight for $15?

It’s now a fight for $30 plus another $8 in benefits.

Rising wages for hotels will increase the pressure for rising wages elsewhere.

And if wages rise, so will prices at hotels and restaurants.

So far, this madness is local to LA, but don’t expect it to stay there.