By Todd Whitney, KALW Crosscurrents
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, San Francisco passed a variety of measures to help low-wage workers try to keep up with the rising cost of living. The city now has the highest minimum wage in the country, at $10.74 an hour. It also requires employers to either provide health benefits or pay into a pool so the city can cover their health care costs.
So how has this worked out for workers and their employers? Ken Jacobs has been studying those questions for over a decade. He is chair of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, and co-author of the book “When Mandates Work” about the impact of San Francisco’s labor laws..
KALW’s Todd Whitney invited Jacobs on a driving tour around some of San Francisco’s restaurants to get an on-the-scene sense of wage issues.
Listen to the complete interview at KALW Crosscurrents.
