California’s minimum wage would rise quickly to $15 an hour under Biden’s stimulus plan

California’s minimum wage would rise to $15 an hour a year sooner than planned under a proposal in President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 economic stimulus package.

Biden campaigned on raising the minimum wage during the 2020 election. He included the proposal in a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan that also calls for a new round of stimulus checks and expanded unemployment benefits.

“It’s time we has a $15 an hour minimum wage, so families can earn a living and get ahead,” Biden said in a campaign video released last October.

The president-elect intends to ask Congress to pass the proposal quickly. He has a good chance of passing key elements of it because his party holds narrow majorities in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.

Biden also wants to end two programs that allow businesses to pay workers less than the minimum wage. The federal government and many states offer a lower minimum wage for tip earners, such as restaurant wait staff. Several states, including California, also allow a lower minimum wage for people with mental or physical disabilities.

Biden’s proposal calls for an end to both exceptions.

Where the federal minimum wage and a state’s minimum wage conflict, employers are required to use the higher of the two wages, according to U.S. Department of Labor.

This means that in California, where the current minimum wage is $14 an hour for large employers and $13 an hour for smaller ones, the minimum wage would increase to $15.

Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016 signed that gradually phases in the $15 an hour minimum wage over the course of several years, beginning in 2017 and ending in 2023.

Many localities in California already have adopted a $15 an hour or higher minimum wage. Those ordinances would not be affected by the federal increase.