Thousands of people working in San Diego’s tourism industry could get a big boost in their pay soon. A San Diego City Councilmember is proposing minimum wage to be raised to $25 dollars per hour for tourism workers. NBC7’s Kelvin Henry has more details.
San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera is calling for a substantial bump in pay for tourism workers.
Councilmember Elo-Rivera will propose a $25 minimum wage for hotel, event center and janitorial service workers at Thursday’s Select Committee on Addressing Cost of Living, according to the committee’s staff report.
The proposed ordinance will also increase that minimum wage each year based on the increase to cost of living measured by the Consumer Price Index or its successor index as established by the U.S. Department of Labor. It will also make sure it matches the federal or state minimum wage if wages of relevant occupations exceeds the city’s minimum wage.
“San Diego should work for the people who make it work. I’m committed to fighting to make sure that the people who fuel our economy can afford to live here. The hotel, event center, and janitorial workers who are the backbone of our multi-billion-dollar tourism industry are barely scraping by while out-of-town corporations’ profit off their labor,” Councilmember Elo-Rivera’s staff said in a statement to NBC 7.
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If passed and implemented, around 8,000 local hotel industry workers would be affected by the pay hike, according to Bridgette Browning, the president of Unite Local 30.
“We keep the tourism industry going and the truth is our members are really struggling to pay their bills,” Browning said.
The economic impact to the local economy remains to be seen.
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“When the minimum wage is increased, there can be winners and losers. So, the workers who make the minimum wage are winners, they’re better off. As a result of that, they have more money to spend and that could give a boost then to the local economy. The losers are potentially then the businesses that employ those workers,” said Alan Smith, a professor of economics at University of San Diego.
If passed by the committee and the full San Diego City Council, the proposed ordinance would go into effect Jan. 1, 2026.
