![Brian J. Stiger [contributed]](https://www.theavtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Brian-J.-Stiger-240x300.jpg)
For nearly 40 years, the County of Los Angeles Department of Consumer Affairs was our local consumer protection agency. As director of the department since 2012, it was my job to make sure all consumers in L.A. County were treated fairly under the law.
However, Los Angeles County is only at its strongest when both consumers and businesses thrive. So about a year ago, the County’s Board of Supervisors made an important change to both the focus and name of my department. Today, the Department of Consumer and Business Affairs empowers both consumers and businesses in L.A. County.
Starting this July 1, L.A. County will have an increased minimum wage. Businesses in unincorporated areas of L.A. County with more than 26 employees must pay their employees a minimum wage of $10.50 an hour.
Businesses with 25 or fewer employees will follow a staggered schedule, paying $10.50 an hour beginning July 1, 2017. The minimum wage will increase every year until 2021, eventually reaching $15 an hour.
The County believes honest work deserves fair pay and this law will certainly boost workers, many of whom struggle to make ends meet.
The Board of Supervisors has tasked my department with enforcing the minimum wage. If workers believe they are not being paid the correct minimum wage, they can file a claim. We will look into the claim, contact the business if necessary, and take appropriate actions to ensure businesses are in compliance.
The County’s minimum wage law includes an anti-retaliatory measure that states that employers cannot punish workers if they file a wage claim or assist in an investigation.
![[Click image to enlarge.]](https://www.theavtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Minimum-wage-poster-2016-205x300.jpg)
For months, my team has reached out to businesses across the County. We conducted several round-table events and went door-to-door to more than 200 businesses to educate employers about the new wage law.
When enforcement efforts begin later this year, if a claim is filed against a business, business owners will have the opportunity to prove they’re in compliance, or to correct a violation.
In addition, the Board of Supervisors and my department are developing new programs to help businesses succeed. The Small Business Initiative, a collaboration with several County departments, will provide workplace development programs and faster plan checks for restaurants among many benefits. The County’s Small Business Utilization plan is establishing easier ways for local small businesses to compete for millions of dollars of available County contracts.
So when we say “Honest Work, Fair Pay,” that could mean your business getting paid, too.
Consumers and businesses thriving. It’s the L.A. County way.
Visit dcba.lacounty.gov or call 1-800-593-8222 to learn more about L.A. County’s new minimum wage.
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William says
Trump’s campaign has been compared to a dumpster fire. Here’s an example for y’all.
His wife, Melania, gave a wonderful speech tonight at the gop convention. When asked if she wrote it herself self, she said she did.
However, it was given to her by someone on the campaign as a draft and she worked on it but it was actually lifted from Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech. Someone caught it and compared them.
How does the Donald ‘splain that? Stay tuned. That dumpster will be ablazing tomorrow because more trash has been fed to it.
Not to worry. His fans just don’t care nuttin’ ’bout nuttin’ and it shows.
William says
I suspect fox ‘news’ will simply pretend that didn’t happen as it’s rubes, er, viewers are too, too stooped to notice.
Tim Scott says
Yeah, Faux News will just ignore it. The Trump shill on CNN has already denounced the whole story as “Just the democrats trying to tarnish what was a GREAT night for Trump.”
I was thinking that it was distracting from Steve King confirming that white superiority is a standard in the Republican platform, or the guy saying “this is from the heart and I’m going to go off the teleprompter…” which was clearly visible ON THE TELEPROMPTER, or “we need to repeal the rules of engagement,” or any number of other unconstitutional, blatantly racist, or otherwise just heinous things they horked up like hairballs.
John says
Fox News did report on this and said that the Trump campaign will have to answer questions concerning the similarities to parts of the speech. And Melania never said she wrote the speech herself but said she had a little help on the speech as possible. Maybe Michele Obama gave her some help? :P
William says
How incredibly ‘stooped’ to plagerize from the sitting First Lady of the OTHER party. Only republicans can be that stooped.
Similarities???? There were extensive ‘word-for-word’ passages and then a word or two was changed. No pass on this mess.
Like I wrote, the Trump campaign is like a dumpster fire.
Then there’s Trump’s VP pick who supported the overthrow in Libya and the Iraq War while Trump is criticizing Hillary for them.
Would that Trump lose all 50 states to make it a complete failure.
William says
fox ‘news’ is likely to lose Roger Ailes, the sex god there.
Hopefully, fox will go down with Trump.
William says
MattMan
You, like so many others that post here will be gone in a short time.
There are about a half dozen new usernames that drop stuff like you did and by next month, we’ll never see those names again.
Their argument just don’t hold up. Just like yours. You’ve said it once. Are you just gonna keep repeating or just go away?
William says
Well, John. I guess we’ve seen the last of Melania for this campaign.
I doubt if she’ll want to be interviewed or dare try another of her ‘own’ speeches.
William says
Now, Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort (or should it be man the fort?) is saying it wasn’t plagiarism and that Hillary is behind the attacks. That’s 2 lies for flinching.
Apparently, all those common words are in the dictionary so there can never ever can be a case for plagiarism, according to his thinking.
She’ll be kept in an undisclosed location from now on.
Joe says
We should bring in Joe Biden so he can weigh in to this all-important debate.
Tim Scott says
Good idea. Joe Biden was hounded by conservative columnists until he dropped out of the presidential race for his plagiarism of a speech. Maybe if the conservatives who are saying “no big deal” were reminded of their own behavior it would get their attention.
Awwww, nobody’s gonna buy that. Double standards are a key plank in the GOP platform.
William says
Biden paid a price for it at the time.
Now, it’s the Trump campaign’s turn.
It was jaw-dropping to hear people deny that it was plagiarism. It truly represents how sloppy the Trump campaign is and how gullible the rubes are that voted for him.
The only thing remembered from the 2012 gop convention is that silly side-show that Clint Eastwood did with the chair.
This gop convention will be remembered for Melania plagiarizing from the speech of the opposition party’s sitting First Lady. How pathetic is that?
Pathetic??? Well, we are speaking of the republicans. Their big celebrity get this time was Scott Baio. Heck, I didn’t know he was still alive.
And, Trump will win just like Romney did.
Bern says
I agree William. She should not get the nomination.
Now, let’s talk about Obama’s “borrowing” from Deval Patrick’s speech. Should he resign?
No.
We have bigger problems in this country than to worry about speeches with borrowed lines. We have a 19 TRILLION dollar debt, a slow growth economy, the top 1 percent benefitting financially disproportionally to the rest of us, terrorists threats, racial unrest, crumbling infrastructure, trade deficits, real unemployment (counting those who have given up looking for work), and a lot more.
I am far more concerned about what each candidate will do rather than if someone making a speech used someone else’s material.
Tim Scott says
The plagiarism itself was a mistake. The thing that is a concern is that the Trump campaign, all the way up to the campaign manager came out swinging with “nothing to see here, no plagiarism happened, it was all just a coincidence that she used all the same words in the same order.” Lying just to hear themselves lie, because seriously NO ONE could believe what they were saying.
They piss on people, like any politician, but when they get caught they just insist that its raining…even when the person getting pissed on points out “but we are inside.”
William says
Oh, Bern.
The plagiarism issue isn’t the real problem. It just highlights the amateurish campaign that Trump is running.
He has no real plans other than ‘making America great again’. Again? Like during the Clinton years or during the Reagan years when wages began their stagnation while executive compensation skyrocketed and the debt increased and mortgage rates were over 10%. And, certainly not during the Bush/Cheney years.
A Trump presidency will be a messy one and he’ll simply deny it just like his campaign manager, Manafort, denied the plagiarism accusation. The only smart thing Trump did was to keep his mouth shut untile the person who did it came forth.
You are simply getting a peek into what a Trump presidency would be like from the divisive and ignorant comments he and his campaign have put out.
Buyer beware. Trump is a con artist. And, a con artist appeals mostly to willingly victims.
Take the crumbling infrastructure. Will Trump and republicans in Congress be willing to pay for it while cutting taxes some more? Are you really thinking things through or just repeating talking points?
Do his supporters think that they too will become rich?
So, you are concerned with what a president will do. What will Trump actually do that will pass the Congress and be constitutional?
Are you still a Sanders supporter with the username ‘Bern’. It would be unlikely that Sanders could get much done either. I think Hillary has the best chance to get something done as president?
Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seem to be able to keep moving forward despite the most intense opposition in our lifetimes. That counts for something.
Trump is a thin-skinned bully and that won’t work well in the White House. And, poor Bernie. He ended up sounding like a spoiled and entitled loser at the end. He had the young vote. He had the momentum. Blah. Blah. Blah. He just didn’t have the votes but expected the nod anyway. It was unreal.
William says
@Tim Scott.
“But, we are inside.”
That’s good. I might ‘plagiarize’ it myself.
This convention will be remembered for that unless Trump makes a grand entrance tomorrow naked.
What else was odd was that the delivery of her speech was a big nothing, dead pan, cold and mechanical like she was reading a shopping list. Yet, the rubes gave her great reviews.
The contrast when they played her and Michelle Obama’s videos side-by-side was remarkable. Michelle was actually alive and not one of the Disney automatrons like Mrs. Trump.
Hillary Trump says
This isn’t even about the lesser of two evils. It is two disasters of equal proportions.
Time to find a third party candidate.
MattMan says
Hillary didn’t pay a price for a much worse lie: denying she sent or received emails that were highly sensitive. Federal code has a consequence for gross negligence. Comey described her actions as “extreme carelessness,” which has an almost identical meaning. By using those words, he avoided indicting her. It is clearly evident Hillary lied for a week about a video causing the Benghazi attack; that is far worse than borrowing 20 seconds of text out of a 14 minute speech.
Not Above The Law says
Everyone commenting on the topic of Hillary’s email disaster would be fired from their job and in jail if they did what she did.
She is above the law apparently.
Tim Scott says
Oh bull.
If she committed some convictable offense, why did the republican lead congressional investigation not file a charge? Do you think they just suddenly decided they like her too much? This line of attack is tiresome nonsense.
Other than giving Faux News something to run one of their not really news so no facts required features on over and over and over this was a minor tempest in a pretty big teapot.
No Hillary says
Anyone who did what she did on the job would be fired. Quit defending her incompetence and corruption. No Hillary.
Tim Scott says
At least my defense has a foundation, unlike your sound bite talking point attacks.
I have a dream says
Tim, I dont care about hillarys emails
But you cant say bull, when jim comey said it was careless, she should have known better.and comey said, if it were ANYONE else, they would have lost security clearence, been possibly fired, anc possible jail time.thus making a person not eligible to be president.thats from the fbi’s mouth.
Tim Scott says
Actual quotes from the transcript instead of the “Someone said that they heard that someone remembered that Comey said” nonsense you are spewing.
“I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed.”
“In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.”
Your desire to inflate this into a federal case when the feds are clearly not interested is instructive. You are a witch hunter, pure and simple.
John says
Deleting or getting rid of thirty three thousand e-mails after being subpoenaed is a crime. Only a crime family like the Clinton’s could get away with that.
William says
OK, John
Go to your grave worrying about the emails.
The election will take place in November regardless of what you think or post.
Your welcome.
Tim Scott says
Actually the Clinton’s couldn’t get away with that. As is often the case with accusations levied hour after hour on Faux News it never happened. To quote the FBI, again:
“I should add here that we found no evidence that any of the additional work-related e-mails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them. Our assessment is that, like many e-mail users, Secretary Clinton periodically deleted e-mails or e-mails were purged from the system when devices were changed.”
I have a dream says
Heres what she should.
Destroy all emails, copies of speech
Wipe out her hard drive
Scrub her server, harddrive, so not even the FBI could retrieve the speech
She could testify in front of congress and lie about speech
The person who helped her write the speech, could plead the 5th.
Donald can meet with AG on fri, talk about grandkids.
FBI on mon, can say she lied about many things, including speech.
FBI can tell you that if this were anyone else, they would be in trouble.
FBI says “no charges”
So really,”what difference does it make”
Tom says
This guy is crazy, with the minimum wage increase, the middle class will suffer once again, as the wage goes higher, prices for goods and services will too but the middle class will not be seeing any increase in our pay. Look around people jobs that were once intended for teens in highschool and college students, as a way to study and have spending cash are now taken by immigrants, whose children get higher education free, EBT, oh and I am sure section 8 housing. Next time you’re in line at Mc Donald’s, Jack in the Box take a look behind the counter, your lucky if you see one teenager working the rest are in between 28-40 years old, an increase in minimum wage like this is going to cause more harm than good in my eyes. Those jobs will be gone. We will be ordering our food on a push screen menu, grocery stores, will be self check out, look at Home Depot maybe two registers open, but all six self check out registers are available.Maybe ill quit my $80,000 job get two minimum wage paying jobs and have less stress and responsibilities at work. I wish the people that claim they represent us actually opened there eyes our middle class taxes are what run this state, give them that nice job of taking pictures at events with community Queens, and dog to be adopted of the week, start making changes best for us.
Tim Scott says
Just for the record, even AFTER the minimum wage gets up to fifteen dollars an hour two full time minimum wage jobs will leave you twenty grand short of your 80K per year. You would need two full time plus another twenty five hour a week part timer.
And that’s assuming you aren’t getting any extra benefits that you want to maintain on top of that 80K, like a retirement plan or paid sick days or paid vacation or something like that.
So, yeah, if you think you can work 105 hour weeks and be stress free, go get ’em. Good luck. But remember, wait until the minimum wage gets to fifteen an hour. At the current minimum wage you would need four full time jobs plus, and I don’t see you working 160 out of the 168 hours in a week.
George says
Min.wage should go up,look average police go up 170,000 a yr per cop . ur paying it .besides law suits
Tom says
Boy George I see you don’t like cops but really $170 thousand a year, come on next time try a smaller number so your comments are more believable. I got friends who have been cops almost 20 years and they are no where close to your made up amount, if they were id sign up and I’m sure so would you.
Tim Scott says
Misleading presentation maybe. There is a police department in California where the average officer pay (in 2014) was $166,410 and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that department and many others have topped 170K by now.
But Redwood City is not here. And it would be pretty easy to read George’s statement as this 170K number being some sort of overall average or statewide at least, which it isn’t.
However, the anecdotal “well my friends” rebuttal is usually not a very reliable argument either. In this case if your friends are “nowhere near that” after twenty years we need to know what would constitute “near.” Average in the LASD was about 110K in 2014. With nearly twenty years in one would think they should be above average at least, which puts them nearer 170K than they are to the person making this proposed minimum of 15 dollars an hour, which is just over 30K per year.
The question we need to answer isn’t “are some jobs worth more than others?” because obviously (to most people) they are. The question is are we really willing to say that some jobs are worth SEVERAL TIMES MORE than others?
If we raise the minimum wage to fifteen dollars an hour a minimum wage worker will still be making about a quarter of what an average LASD deputy makes. Law enforcement complains that they risk their lives and barely make a living, so what does that say about the people who are trying to get a raise that will still leave them only making a quarter of what they make? Should a family need four wage earners banding together to produce one “living”?
Now, I can already see coming the “those are supposed to be ‘stepping stone jobs’ retort. Leaving aside that even people on such a stepping stone really shouldn’t be asked to just ‘tough it out’ and not actually make a living while working full time and looking to a better day sometime in the far future, it is very fair to ask “a stepping stone to what?” These supposed ‘stepping stone’ jobs OUTNUMBER the theoretical ‘real jobs’ by almost two to one. Is the objective of keeping the pay below the level of making a living a hope that half those people starve to death before they pass over the ‘stepping stones’ into the world of ‘real jobs’?
And remember, this making a quarter of what our barely making a living cop makes is AT fifteen dollars an hour. Currently many people are making LESS than a quarter of this “bare living” that cops are complaining about…and that’s not accounting for benefits, it’s just pay.
By the way…for those saying ‘Tim just hates cops,’ I’m not the one who picked cop pay as the example here, I just went with it. I’m guessing that the main reason it was cited in the first place, and definitely the reason that I stuck with it, is that cop pay is readily available as accessible information. I don’t know what the average worker at plant 42 makes, and don’t know how I would go about finding out, but average pay in every police department is easy to find. I could have switched to teachers, or firemen, or whatever other group of public employees, but the conversation started with cops so I left it there.
So stupid says
Since minimum wage will will be 2021, unemployment rate will be at an all time high in 2021.Employers are going to do everything they can to avoid there costs. Restaurants already have computers at tables to take orders. Computers (for self orders)+cooks=welcome to the wave of the future.
Greg says
Does anyone really believe that the employee, consumer, home owner, county resident or small businesses wont take the hit for the minimum wage hike? 40 hour work week cut to 24, 32, prices up to cover costs, small businesses out of business, etc.? Haven’t seen a business yet who will take the hit before passing it off to the consumer or their employees.
Tim Scott says
Since this guy is speaking on sound economic principles, it is a safe bet that most of our readers and commenters will not understand a word he said.
Joe says
You could compete for for millions of dollars in county contracts? Not one word does it say how business will benefit from paying employees more money.it does imply, that if you dont, we will shut you down.basic economics.pay employess more, price of service goes up.middle class, bend over.oh more tax revenue for city and state.
Tim Scott says
A perfect example.
thistoshallpass says
County contracts pay horrible. They gather three bids (at Least) for each project and go with the lowest bidder each time. I’ve been a registered vendor for L.A. County for 15 years now and they have never used our local business, it’s always companies like Securitas or Universal Protection that can afford to take a lost. #noloveforthelittleguy
David Harrelson says
Please enlighten us on what “sound economic principles” were mentioned in this article, so those of us who don’t “understand a word he said,” can learn.
A wage is a price. If a price is artificially increased on a product by government edict, with all else being equal, fewer of those products will be purchased. That is a sound economic principle.
One could argue, incorrectly, that increasing the minimum wage is better for society, that is one’s prerogative. But to say it is sound economics is a stretch…
Tim Scott says
Assess the economic impact of a dollar. The dollar gets spent by the government that issued it. Let’s say that government spends it on lowering the incidence of drunk driving. It passes to a law enforcement agency, then into the paycheck of a police officer. That officer uses it to buy some good or service. It goes into a multitude of paychecks, and profits. Now in a bunch of little pieces it continues through this repetition again and again. Bits and pieces find their way back in the form of taxes.
But some of those pieces, almost always the pieces that went into profits, go to people who don’t really need to spend them again. Their impact ends, or at least slows. As wealth accumulates into fewer and fewer hands the effectiveness of every dollar is reduced.
Putting more of the pieces into wages makes them circulate more. Putting more of those pieces into the hands of people who NEED to spend them again immediately makes them more effective. So by shifting company incomes into wages the economy is stimulated more than by having them locked up in profits.
Now, IF, and it is a BIG if, there is a lack of profits then shifting company income towards wages can damage the company. Now, be honest, do YOU think there is currently a shortage of profits? The stock market indicates that profits are abundant. The accumulation of greater and greater wealth into fewer and fewer hands indicates there is no shortage of profits. Other than the howls of executives there is NO indication that any of the gigantic corporations who employ the vast majority of minimum wage employees will be in any way debilitated by shifting some of their profits into wages.
David Harrelson says
First, your argument rests on the premise that money earned does not belong to those who earn it, but it belongs to all of us, a premise which I do not hold.
Second, you’re assuming that if a company is forced to increase the wages of their lowest paid workers beyond what the market will bear, they will take money from their profits to make up the difference. That is not how it usually works. Instead, in the long term they will increase their prices, find others ways to lower their costs (automation or another method of increasing productivity), or, if they have the option, direct their operations into a more profitable venture. Bottom line, though, in the long term they will find a way to hire fewer minimum wage workers. Now, of course, my argument applies primarily to financially secure companies. For many small businesses, increasing the minimum wage beyond what the market will bear can put them out of business.
William says
@David Harrelson
And, what sound principles allow for artificially inflating the compensations for top executives of companies that also increase the prices of goods and services. Think the Walmart heirs, all mult-billionaires for doing nothing. Even Walmart’s low prices are ‘artificially’ high.
Since Reagan, we really haven’t had a normal business cycle recession. It’s been S&L, junk bonds, dot coms, sub-prime bad loans repackaged and sold to investors and on and on while WAGES HAVE REMAINED STAGNANT since Reagan. One fraudulent scheme after another. Did workers cause any of those downturns? Or undocumented workers? Or any other people the gop blames for everything?
When did wage increases create those kinds of economic messes? In fact, after WWII and unions were much stronger and wages were comparatively good and rising, the middle class in the U.S. was created and the U.S. became a superpower.
BTW The Reagan recovery was because he went on a spending spree with defense even while cutting the top tax rate from 70% to 28%. Yeah, thinks look good if you are running up the balance on your credit card…..for a while as they did in Bush’s first term.
The very people who Trump appeals to have been the ones harmed by Reagan and gop economics since then.
In the last 60 years, there have been about twice the number of recessions under gop administration than under Democratic ones.
So, I trust the proposed Democratic ‘business model’ that wants to raise the minimum wage over the one you are defending.
I’d love to hear your response.
David Harrelson says
It is not “artificial” for a company to pay its executives more money than what you, or anyone else, think is enough. It is their money to do with as they please. If it is a publically traded company and you believe it is paying its executives too much, then maybe you should buy stock in the company and vote against their wages.
Regarding your statements about “a normal business cycle,” with few exceptions, most of those problems were caused by the government’s involvement in the economy. You are correct in that wage increases did not cause those problems.
Regarding supporting Trump, please don’t include me in that group.
Regarding me defending a current minimum wage, I didn’t. I don’t think there should be any minimum wage. Everyone would be much better off without one. The only reason some minimum wage laws may have not had a negative effect on the economy is that they were very near or below the market price for wages at the time.
Tim Scott says
Glad to see your understanding of supply and demand is so thorough. Now if you could move past chapter one in whatever Introduction to Economics textbook you are reading perhaps we could move on with a discussion.
David Harrelson says
Mr. Scott,
In response to your comment “Glad to see your understanding of supply and demand is so thorough. Now if you could move past chapter one in whatever Introduction to Economics textbook you are reading perhaps we could move on with a discussion.”: Let me look in chapter one of my logic book… oh yes, you are using the old ad hominem argument… since you have no answer to what I wrote, you try to attack me… now I get it… After I read chapter two I may respond further…
Tim Scott says
David…you asked for principles, I supplied them. You went back to the one principle you used in your first argument…supply and demand.
If that is the only principle you want to use, you can build a strong case against a minimum wage. So if you want to limit the economics to that, which is covered in chapter one of most Intro to Econ texts, there will be no disputing your position.
If you want to look at my previous response and examine the question in broader terms, fine. If you now want to play “you hurt my thin skin” and go away mad, that is also your prerogative.
I have a dream says
Reagan recovery was because he spent too much?then explain why after obama spending 10 trillion, we are still not growing, welfare is higher, average wage went down 4000, healthcare 60 percent increase, etc, etc
Tim Scott says
Reagan tripled the federal deficit, Obama has cut it by about two thirds. Yes, tripling the federal deficit makes for a very big year.
Now, here is where a bunch of Republicans, who as Newt Gingrich explains consider feelings to be more important than facts, will flip out. They will call me a liar since Reagan tripling the deficit “just doesn’t feel right.” They won’t bother checking the facts, which are readily available.
In their denials half of them, at least, will use “debt” and “deficit” interchangeably as if they don’t know the difference, because, well, they don’t. Others will try to change conventions of analysis that have applied to the data for decades to make it “feel better,” for example trying to pin FY2009 on Obama even though federal spending for FY2009 (which started in October of 2008) was determined by the GWBush administration.
In the end, these Republicans will go away mad as hornets, and unconvinced, because in some way they will have ignored any facts that could conflict with their world view and blamed me for the brief discomfort before they decided to ignore those facts. This, unfortunately, is what the Republicans have wrought. Their voters have been operating in a fact vacuum for so long that they can fall prey to a demagogue like Trump.