In deal with business leaders, $30 minimum wage for L.A. hotel and airport workers will be delayed

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A $30 minimum wage for hotel and airport workers will be delayed after Los Angeles elected officials persuaded a group of business leaders to drop a ballot measure that would have devastated the city budget.On Tuesday, the City Council approved the 18-month delay, which will postpone the wage increase until after the 2028 Olympics and fend off the business-backed initiative to eliminate the gross receipts tax, which is the city’s second-largest revenue stream.The minimum wage will still increase to $25 in July and continue in increments until reaching $30 in January 2030.Because the 11 to 4 vote was not unanimous, the new pay schedule will head to a second vote next week.

Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martínez cast the “no” votes.In May 2025, the council approved a proposal that would have increased the minimum wage to $30 in July 2028 and also raised an hourly payment for healthcare coverage.In response, a coalition of airline and hotel businesses gathered enough signatures to place a measure on the Nov.3 ballot that took aim at the city’s gross receipts tax, which is imposed on a vast array of businesses, including entertainment companies, child-care providers, law firms, accountants, healthcare businesses, nightclubs and many others.If approved by voters, the measure would have stripped $740 million from the city’s general fund over the first year, according to city officials, and over five years would have amounted to a $860 million loss annually on average.

City officials, hotel and airport businesses and labor unions had been in continuous negotiations since last Wednesday, when the council narrowly approved an initial postponement of the wage increase to allow time to reach an agreement.The business coalition agreed to withdraw the measure if the council permanently approved the delay.In addition to delaying the $...