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 The development comes as a wave of minimum wage increases at the
state level sweeps the United States as the federal minimum wage has
gone more than six years without an increase from $7.25 an hour.
The California Secretary of State's office said supporters of the
measure, pushed by Labor group coalition Lift Up California, had
gathered more than the 400,000 signatures needed to have the Fair
Wage Act of 2016 placed on the ballot.
"California has led the country on environmental, health and civil
rights protections and it’s only appropriate that we would become
the first state to enact a minimum wage that allows millions of
families to live in dignity," Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila
Kuehl said in a statement.
 She added that the measure would build on the efforts of Los Angeles
lawmakers, who last year passed a law hiking the city's minimum wage
to $15 by 2020.
The measure would boost the state's minimum wage to $11 an hour in
2017, and increase it by a dollar an hour every year until reaching
$15 an hour in 2021. After 2021, the minimum wage would be adjusted
annually based on the rate of inflation.
The California Chamber of Commerce said earlier this month that it
would oppose any state-wide ballot initiatives for a $15 minimum
wage, arguing that it would create new costs for state and local
governments as well as businesses.
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A Field Poll published last August showed that about seven out of 10
respondents favored the measure, with nearly half saying they
strongly favored it.
Fourteen states and several cities began the new year with increases
to their minimum wage. California and Massachusetts saw some of the
biggest hikes among the states, both increasing from $9 to $10 an
hour, according to an analysis by the National Conference of State
Legislatures.
(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Bill
Rigby)
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