LA’s Minimum Wage Law & Minimum Job Security

Letter to Ephesians: It didn’t take a study to tell LA & the rest of us that the city’s new $30/hr minimum wage law was another progressive experiment that would cost thousands their hours, overtime & their jobs as well as make the price of a flea bag hotel room unaffordable.

The Fox News story’s title said it all: “’Utterly unaffordable’: Study reveals how deep blue city’s minimum wage law is ravaging key industry.” “Reveals” my foot. Only the naïve or deluded could not see the pain that would be inflicted on workers AND consumers by LA’s “phased-in” minimum wage hike for hotel workers. Said Dr. Jackie Filla, president of the Hotel Assn of LA: “The bottom line is the city of LA has forced a wage & benefits package on hotels that is utterly unaffordable at a time when Californians & Americans are laser focused on affordability.” Nice “bottom line” sound bite, but the real bottom line is Filla’s study that found hotels have “eliminated or expect to eliminate 6% of positions, roughly 650 jobs” since the wage laws kicked in last year. The law mandated a $22.50 per hour wage in July 2025 and will keep increasing that number incrementally until it reaches $30 in July 2028.

“Even more are seeing hours reduced” Filla said. “We’ve seen restaurant closures within hotels, parking is already getting more expensive, and improvements and the creation of new buildings altogether are being delayed or canceled.” But what Filla didn’t mention was the inevitable further fallout that will also impact LA consumers sooner or later as those increased costs that can’t be laid off or cut back are passed on by the businesses to them.

Davd Soul