The California minimum wage increased by $1 to $9 an hour on Tuesday, affecting thousands of workers across the state, including those on campus.
The change will lead to an increase in pay for as many as 1,000 part-time and intermittent student and recreation workers, said UCLA spokesman Tod Tamberg in an email statement. The university does not expect to lay off any employees as a result of the change, Tamberg said in the statement.
The minimum wage will increase by another dollar to $10 an hour in January 2016. Although the state Senate passed another bill in May to raise the minimum wage to $13 an hour by 2017, the measure failed in the state Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment Committee last week. Legislators in the committee expressed concerns that another bill means revoking an agreement legislators made with businesses last year when they passed a bill to hike up the wage.
Students with work-study jobs will likely be unaffected by the change because they are typically paid $10.30 an hour or more already.
Associated Students UCLA Finance Director Rich Delia said the association increased its minimum pay by $0.50 to $9.25 an hour on Tuesday to stay above the minimum wage.
He added that the change did not affect many employees at on-campus stores and restaurants, but ASUCLA expects to increase wages for many more employees in 2016 when the minimum wage rises again.
Compiled by Sam Hoff and Jeong Park, Bruin senior staff.