I guess it isn’t enough that their hard-left policies have turned Los Angeles, a once-great tourist destination, into a has-been city of panhandlers/grifters who steal from stores without fear of punishment and streets on which, if you dare to walk them, are filled with human feces and used drug paraphernalia.
Now the City Council seems determined to drive away what’s left of the hotel business.
How? Here’s your answer, via Jonathan Lloyd’s article for NBC 4, Los Angeles:
The Los Angeles City Council gave final approval Friday to an ordinance that will increase the minimum wage for Los Angeles hotel and airport workers.
The proposal, which would bump minimum wage to $30 an hour by 2028, now heads to Mayor Bass’ desk for approval. The council gave initial approval to the measure earlier this month on a 12-3 vote and voted 8-3 in support of the plan Friday.
The vote authorized updates to the city’s Living Wage and Hotel Workers Minimum Wage ordinances, which regulate the minimum wage for such workers. Hotel and airport employees would receive $22.50 an hour starting in July under the amendments, followed by an annual $2.50 increase over three years.
Hoteliers and some business owners warned the plan will threaten an already unstable industry.
Workers are expected to earn $25 an hour beginning July 2026, $27.50 an hour in July 2027 and $30 an hour in July 2028, as well as receive a new $8.35 per hour healthcare payment, which will begin July 2026.
So this legislation, which is virtually certain to get Mayor Karen Bass’s signature, means that, as of July of next year, hotel workers, currently earning a base salary of $20.32 an hour, will be earning a base salary of $25 an hour, plus an additional $8.35 an hour for healthcare. That’s a total of $33.35 an hour – a rise of more than 60% over what they are being paid now…and with more to come in succeeding years, eventually reaching $38 an hour in 2028.
How are hotels going to pay this amount? Why they’ll raise their prices accordingly.
So, as Los Angeles continues its deep-dive downward as a city, visitors will be forced to pay a significant premium (on top of the city’s already sky-high hotel prices) to experience its path to self-destruction.
In the words of said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry & Commerce Association:
“The wage is too high. It will drive up costs significantly…this self-immolation will have dire consequences on the city’s budget for decades to come.”
Think he’s got a point? I do.
What’s that old adage? “Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom before you learn your lesson”? Well, Los Angeles – along with San Francisco, Oakland, etc…and, more broadly, the entire state of California – seem hell-bent to prove it is true.
