NEVER ENOUGH
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser was proud to announce Wednesday the minimum-wage hike that took effect that day, though just across town activists were still fighting for more.
At $9.50, the District of Columbia minimum wage was already higher than any state in the nation before it rose to $10.50 Wednesday.
“Raising the minimum wage will give tens of thousands of Washingtonians a raise and boost the bottom lines of our local businesses,” Bowser said. “It’s good for workers, businesses and our economy,”
The minimum-wage hike came as part of a three-year initiative approved by the D.C. council in 2013 that will see it climb again in 2016 to $11.50– but some in the city still want more.
At a Board of Elections hearing later Wednesday afternoon, activists fighting for a $15 minimum wage attempted to get a ballot referendum in place to vote for another wage increase.
The “Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2016,” a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation, would continue the city’s incremental minimum wage increases, starting at $12.50 in 2017. It would creep up again each year until reaching $15.00 per hour by 2020.
Upon reaching $15.00 in 2020, the minimum wage would then increase annually to match the rising cost of living in the city.
D.C. government employees, though, would be exempt from the minimum wage levels if the law goes into effect.
If the board decides that the proposed initiative deserves a spot on the ballot, the activists will need to collect more than 20,000 signatures on a petition before it makes its way to voters.
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