LA’s $30 Minimum Wage Debate: Is LA on a Path to Having the ‘Highest-Paid Unemployed Workforce in the Country?

In May 2025, the Los Angeles City Council approved a minimum wage hike, in a 12-3 vote, for airport and hotel workers, with the goal of reaching $30 an hour by 2028 – in time for the Los Angeles hosted Olympics.

The Globe suggested that this was just a little opportunistic. And we weren’t alone. The $30 minimum wage for tourism and hospitality workers was even dubbed the “Olympic Wage.”

Immediately following the vote, the Center for Union Facts (CUF) ran a full-page ad in the California statewide edition of USA Today calling out the Los Angeles City Council’s decision to move forward with a union-backed $30 minimum wage for hotel and tourism workers, saying the city is “ruining a golden opportunity.”

The ad called out the 11,000 hospitality jobs the city lost last year, saying “this new proposal will kill more jobs and raise costs for visitors.” The city’s industry has faced a perfect storm of natural and man-made disasters, including the recent fires, unrealistic wage and benefit mandates, and disruptive strikes that hinder tourism.

“L.A.’s hospitality industry is already struggling, and this drastic wage increase will only make the situation worse,” said Charlyce Bozzello, communications director for the Center for Union Facts. “The union pushing for this policy – Unite Here Local 11 – is the same union that has disrupted weddings, disturbed countless hotel guests with early morning protests, and even tried to ruin a Taylor Swift concert. Now, it looks like the union’s next target is the L.A. Olympics.”

Given how the $20 per hour fast food wage has played out so disastrously, and how the Los Angeles hotel industry is already reporting a 6% job cut due to the $30 minimum wage hike, any other cities or counties considering economic suicide need to rethink falsely inflating the minimum wage.

Well, the $30 per hour minimum wage debate is back at the LA City Council after so many business owners have warned council members that such a high minimum wage has led to reduced hours, staff cuts, increased prices, and could force them to close – as has happened with the statewide $20 per hour fast food minimum wage.

LA City leaders are considering a plan to delay the $30 minimum wage, pushing it out to 2030, rather than ushering in the high wage by LA28.

NBC LA reported on this today:

One of three no votes last year was made by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez, who had very practical economic motivation behind her vote, as the Globe reported:

“This policy imposes a significant wage and health benefit increase overnight that will inevitably result in higher hotel rates, reduced hours for hotel workers, and job losses–not just in hotels, but across businesses that rely on tourism: restaurants, retail, attractions, and our struggling commercial corridors. Tying the wage increase to the 2028 Olympics may sound appealing, but the reality is that many of those events are happening outside city limits, yet this increase only impacts the City of Los Angeles making our hotels less competitive and undercutting our ability to attract tourists resulting in a loss of TOT, taxes and other economic impacts that the City will lose as we are facing a $1 billion deficit and laying off workers.

“My concern remains that we are on a path to having the highest-paid unemployed workforce in the country, where wages go up, but job opportunities disappear because we failed to think through the economic impact on our small businesses, hotels, and the broader tourism sector.”

Ms. Rodriguez was right.

Last year, by June, “data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics was released, revealing a staggering 36,565 fast food jobs have been lost since September 2023 when the $20 per hour minimum wage law, AB 1228, was signed into law,” the Globe reported.

Another 2025 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge Massachusetts reported:

“AB 1228 increased wages substantially in California’s fast food sector,” the new economic study by the National Bureau of Economic Research finds.

But the study finds something else as well: