November 13, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
Voters in San Francisco last week overwhelmingly approved a resolution requiring that employers — including nonprofit groups — increase the minimum wage they pay to their workers. The measure raises the lowest hourly wage in the city to $8.50 — $1.75 higher than the minimum wage in California. The federal minimum wage is $5.15.
The new wage law will go into effect in three months for most for-profit businesses. The city’s 6,400 charities, foundations, and nonprofit organizations and employers with 10 or fewer workers will have two years to comply with the law. More than 13,000 of San Francisco’s workers, who make up less than 3 percent of the city’s work force, earn less than $7.50 per hour. The San Francisco area has one of the highest costs of living in the country.
The leader of the state’s nonprofit association says the law puts many organizations in a bind.
“We’ll get calls from many groups urging us to help them get exempted from the law,” says Florence L. Green, executive director of the California Association of Nonprofits, in Los Angeles. “This is a difficult thing for nonprofits to do, because even though they will have to pay their employees more, their funders — including the state government — won’t give them more money to pay for it. Unlike businesses, groups can’t pass the additional costs on to consumers.”
Ms. Green said she will encourage her organization’s members in San Francisco to pay the required wage. “It’s a Catch-22,” she says. “We have many social-justice groups in the state who regularly fight for a living wage for their constituents, yet can’t afford to pay it to their own employees.”
