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Mayor Eric Garcetti Announces Plan for $13.25 Minimum Wage

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced plans on Labor Day to increase the minimum wage from $9 to $13.25 an hour by 2017.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti in July 2014. He was expected to announce plans on Labor Day to increase the minimum wage. (Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times)

Garcetti had met with business, labor, community and faith leaders in recent weeks “to discuss ways to help L.A. families and our economy thrive,” the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.

City officials said the current hourly wage would rise to $10.25 immediately, then increase by $1.50 in each of the two succeeding years.

Beginning in 2017, the new minimum was expected to rise at a rate tied to the consumer price index for metropolitan Los Angeles.

Garcetti, business owners and faith leaders detailed the plan during a speech in Martin Luther King Jr. Park (map) in South L.A.

“I’m proposing to responsibly and gradually raise the minimum wage in L.A. to $13.25 because it’s deplorable and bad for our economy to have one million Angelenos stuck in poverty, even when working full-time,” Garcetti said.

Garcetti discussed his proposal Tuesday on the KTLA 5 Morning News.

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