West Hollywood is setting the bar high. In a move following the agreement by the California City's Council to increase the minimum wage of the city's employees, people are celebrating over such wonderful news.

Wage Hike will occur and start taking effect in January for other employees and will gradually increase every six (6) months until July of 2023. This would mean that the city will eventually surpass California's minimum wage which is recorded to reach $15 by 2022 for employers who employ more than twenty-five (25) employees. Amongst all the states in the United States, California has the highest minimum wage.

City Council member John D'Amico said in an interview that there are only a select few among the 20,000 jobs in West Hollywood that provide a wage high enough that employees can actually guarantee living there.

In an interview, D'Amico said, “Fewer than 10% of our jobs pay enough to live in the city. I believe we are now righting the founding wrong of this city. Keeping West Hollywood workers in a position where they cannot be our neighbors and worse, they have to learn how to live without a reliable income, this has to finally no longer be acceptable.”

However, not everyone is happy with the news. There are still some local business owners who are against the increase and spoke out, asserting that businesses are still facing hardships and struggles and are not still able to recover from the pandemic. They contended that this wage hike would simply push companies out of the city. Restaurant owners agree with the sentiment, saying that their employees are already highly compensated.

Aside from the wage hike, the ordinance passed through unanimous voting of the City Council's members will also include the expansion of paid vacation and sick and personal time for employees.