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 The Los Angeles County government is Southern California's largest
single employer, with more than 105,000 workers ranging from
firefighters and sheriff's deputies to social workers.
The Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to institute the minimum wage
hike for private-sector workers in unincorporated Los Angeles County
and 4-1 to extend the same increase to workers on the county
payroll.
The new ordinance would benefit an estimated 5,400 individuals on
the county's payroll, said Joel Bellman, a spokesman for Supervisor
Sheila Kuehl, who backed the measure.
There are about 390,000 workers employed in parts of the county
falling outside the city of Los Angeles and 87 other incorporated
municipalities, but Bellman said he lacked a figure for how many of
them now earn less than $15 a hour.
 Passage of the measure follows similar wage hikes enacted recently
in Los Angeles - the nation's second-most populous city - as well as
San Diego, San Francisco and elsewhere.
Supporters, including Kuehl, say the measures aim to help a growing
number of low-paid workers who find themselves slipping into poverty
as wages stagnate and living expenses rise.
Opponents, such as Supervisor Michael Antonovich, say such actions
put an undue burden on businesses still struggling to rebound from
California's economic slump and drive companies into nearby
jurisdictions that have not mandated an increase.
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The federal minimum wage has been set at $7.25 an hour since 2009.
California's statewide hourly minimum rose from $8 to $9 last July
and goes to $10 with effect from Jan. 1, 2016.
L.A. County as a whole is California's most populous county, though
its unincorporated areas account for less than a tenth of all county
residents - just over 1 million.
The county has a population of 10.4 million, including nearly 4.1
million residents of the city of Los Angeles.
(Reporting by Phoenix Tso; Writing and additional reporting by Steve
Gorman; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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