As of July 1, 2019, the effective minimum wage increased considerably in several California cities and counties including the City of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Pasadena and Malibu. Like California’s minimum wage, the increased minimum wage in these California cities and counties is typically higher for larger employers with 26 or more employees than for small employers with 25 or fewer employees.
Hotel workers in places like Santa Monica, Long Beach, the City of Los Angeles and Oakland are entitled to wages significantly higher than the minimum wage for other types of employees. For example, Hotel workers in Santa Monica and the City of Los Angeles now earn a minimum wage of $16.63 per hour. All of the new minimum wages are summarized below.
At Custis Law, P.C., our Los Angeles employment law attorneys can answer your questions about the minimum wage laws in California and assist you if you’re a victim of wage theft. To learn more, please call (213) 863-4276 or visit our website to schedule a free, confidential consultation.
The New Minimum Wages in California As of July 1, 2019
All California employees earning the minimum wage received a raise on January 1, 2019 when the state increased the minimum wage to $12 per hour for large employers (26 employees or more) and $11 per hour for small employers (25 employees or fewer).
As of July 1, 2019, minimum wage workers in certain California cities and counties received an additional raise. The following chart summarizes the effective minimum wages in those areas:
| City/County |
Pre-July 1, 2019 Minimum Wage |
July 1, 2019 Minimum Wage |
| Alameda |
$11.00 / $12.00 (small / large employer rate) |
$13.50 (all employers) |
| Berkeley | $15.00 | $15.59 |
|
Emeryville (56 or more employees) |
$15.69 | $16.30 |
|
Emeryville (55 or fewer employees) |
$15.00 | $16.30 |
|
Fremont (26 or more employees) |
$12.00 | $13.50 |
|
Long Beach (hotel workers) |
$14.64 | $14.97 |
|
City of Los Angeles (26 or more employees) |
$13.25 | $14.25 |
|
City of Los Angeles (25 or fewer employees) |
$12.00 | $13.25 |
|
City of Los Angeles (hotel workers) |
$16.10 | $16.63 |
|
County of Los Angeles Unincorporated (26 or more employees) |
$13.25 | $14.25 |
|
County of Los Angeles Unincorporated (25 or fewer employees) |
$12.00 | $13.25 |
|
Malibu (26 or more employees) |
$13.25 | $14.25 |
|
Malibu (25 or fewer employees) |
$12.00 | $13.25 |
| Milpitas | $13.50 | $15.00 |
|
Oakland (hotel workers without benefits) |
$13.80 | $20.00 |
|
Oakland (hotel workers with benefits) |
$13.80 | $15.00 |
|
Pasadena (26 or more employees) |
$13.25 | $14.25 |
|
Pasadena (25 or fewer employees) |
$12.00 | $13.25 |
| San Francisco | $15.00 | $15.59 |
| San Francisco (government supported employee) | $13.27 | $13.79 |
| San Leandro | $13.00 | $14.00 |
|
Santa Monica (26 or more employees) |
$13.25 | $14.25 |
|
Santa Monica (25 or fewer employees) |
$12.00 | $13.25 |
|
Santa Monica (hotel workers) |
$16.10 | $16.63 |
The Minimum Wage Law in California: Employers Must Pay You For Every Minute That You Work
The minimum wage rules in California are straightforward. California employers are obligated to pay employees the effective minimum wage for all compensable time. Compensable work time is defined as “the time during which an employee is subject to the control of an employer, and includes all the time the employee is suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so.” What’s that mean? That means you should be paid for every minute that you are under the control of your employer and/or required to do any work for your employer.
In an important court decision in 2018 involving Starbucks, the California Supreme Court decided that “The relevant statutes and wage order do not allow employers to require employees to routinely work for minutes off the clock without compensation.” The Starbucks case—called Troester v. Starbucks Corp. (2018) 5 Cal. 5th 829—involved an employee who was required to clock out and then to spend several minutes in the store each night performing work duties for Starbucks.
Specifically, the Starbucks employee had to activate the alarm, exit the store, and lock the front door. The employee also walked his coworkers to their cars in compliance with Starbucks’s policy, occasionally reopened the store to allow employees to retrieve items they left behind, waited with employees for their rides to arrive and brought in store patio furniture mistakenly left outside.
These tasks only took a few minutes each workday—but they were all minutes that the employee was required to work while off-the-clock. Starbucks argued that the time was “de minimis,” meaning just a little bit, just a trifle. For those reasons, Starbucks argued it did not need to pay the employee for this small amount of time.
The California Supreme Court decided in favor of the employee and against Starbucks:
A few extra minutes of work each day can add up. [The Starbucks employee] is seeking payment for 12 hours and 50 minutes of compensable work over a 17-month period, which amounts to $102.67 at a wage of $8 per hour. That is enough to pay a utility bill, buy a week of groceries, or cover a month of bus fares. What Starbucks calls “de minimis” is not de minimis at all to many ordinary people who work for hourly wages.
As you might suspect, employers can violate the minimum wage laws in several ways:
- Employers fail to pay the correct effective minimum wage. If you work in one of the cities or counties referenced in this article and are not receiving the effective minimum wage on or after July 1, your employer is violating the minimum wage laws.
- Unlawful off-the-clock work. The term “off the clock” refers to time that your employer asks or requires you to work that is not recorded for purposes of calculating your wages. For example, if you’re paid by the hour and required to respond to work-related emails calls or texts while you are off-the-clock, you have a claim for unpaid minimum wages due to off-the-clock work. The Starbucks case was a case about uncompensated off-the-clock
- Unlawful time shaving. Time shaving is an unlawful practice where a manager or supervisor deletes time from your time records. Some businesses regularly change the clock-in and clock-out times on an employee’s time records to eliminate overtime and meal break violations. Time shaving is unlawful wage theft.
Contact a Los Angeles Employment Lawyer to Discuss Minimum Wage Violations
For more information on whether your employer has failed to pay you appropriately, please contact the Los Angeles employment law attorneys at Custis Law, P.C. You can set up a free consultation by calling (213) 863-4276 or visit our website. We can tell you more about your legal remedies after reviewing the details of your claim. Our employment lawyers represent clients throughout Southern California from locations in Los Angeles, Irvine, and San Bernardino.