California: Minimum Wage

[00:00:01] Dieser komplexe Finanzierungstalk ist ganz schön anstrengend. Ob ich mein Depot jemals angelegt kriege?

[00:00:06] Aber du hast doch schon ein Depot.

[00:00:08] Äh, nee.

[00:00:09] Doch, du hast das Vodafone Giga Depot.

[00:00:11] Ha, stimmt! Und da habe ich ja selbst in der Hand, wie groß mein Depot ist.

[00:00:15] Jetzt mit dem Vodafone Giga Depot und verbrauchtes Datenvolumen in den nächsten Monat mitnehmen.

[00:00:19] Go on im zuverlässigen 5G-Netz von Vodafone. Vodafone. Together we can.

[00:00:25] Ich bin glücklich, dass ich meine Meinung habe. Wenn du in California bist, musst du in

[00:00:33] California suchen, deine Stadt zu finden, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

[00:00:53] um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

[00:00:54] wondering, yes, at some point we will split this off and there will be separate episodes,

[00:01:00] but sometimes is, it just makes sense to do one. And this is one of those things we think

[00:01:05] you tell us, but before we get into all that, what's up, Walt?

[00:01:10] What's up? What's up with you, man? I'm good.

[00:01:12] What's up, William? Wait, it's Walter William.

[00:01:14] Yes, I never get it right.

[00:01:15] Yeah, Walter William III.

[00:01:16] Walter William III.

[00:01:17] You be like, William.

[00:01:19] William III.

[00:01:19] The third.

[00:01:22] Cause, cause I always get confused. Cause like,

[00:01:25] your name is Walter William, but then at one point you was like, no, I'm gonna go by William.

[00:01:29] And I'm like, all right. So I'm like, okay, that must be his first name.

[00:01:33] So William Walter, but it's really Walter William III, the Duncan III WD3.

[00:01:39] You know what I mean?

[00:01:40] Yup.

[00:01:42] What's up, man?

[00:01:44] Nothing much.

[00:01:44] I'm good, bro.

[00:01:45] Just grateful.

[00:01:46] Sending that gratitude again.

[00:01:48] Good, man.

[00:01:48] That's a great.

[00:01:49] Hope it's ready to go.

[00:01:50] How about you, man?

[00:01:51] I'm doing the same.

[00:01:52] Doing the same, man.

[00:01:53] It's just, it's, it's definitely a season of change.

[00:01:56] Transition.

[00:01:57] It's definitely a season of transition.

[00:01:58] Who knows?

[00:02:00] Who knows?

[00:02:01] Who knows guys?

[00:02:02] Okay.

[00:02:02] Sometimes life in general will have you speeches and just like, Hey, it is what it is.

[00:02:07] Yeah.

[00:02:07] So many.

[00:02:08] Just, just the way it goes.

[00:02:09] My life for the last, almost a year now has been like, I think of Oprah saying, you can

[00:02:14] have it all, but not all at once.

[00:02:19] Yeah.

[00:02:19] So it's okay.

[00:02:20] It's things like folks, we, when we like share stuff is because we going through it.

[00:02:27] Right.

[00:02:27] We are not at a point where we could look, we could give some people some advice cause

[00:02:31] we are successful in our own right.

[00:02:34] But yeah, like we, I don't think we say it enough.

[00:02:37] We're not talking at folks.

[00:02:40] We're talking with y'all.

[00:02:42] Right.

[00:02:43] We're relating.

[00:02:44] We're relating.

[00:02:44] We're, we're sharing our experiences and sharing our struggles.

[00:02:49] Current and past.

[00:02:50] Through payroll, through your paycheck, through these conversations.

[00:02:53] We just say, yep.

[00:02:54] Present, future, past.

[00:02:55] Who knows?

[00:02:57] But yeah.

[00:02:58] So I don't want, I like, I don't, I, cause I don't want every folks like, who do they think

[00:03:01] they are?

[00:03:02] Nobody really.

[00:03:03] We don't think we're not, we don't think we're anybody.

[00:03:04] We're Brian and Walt.

[00:03:05] That's who we think we are.

[00:03:06] We're older.

[00:03:07] And then with, hopefully with AI, we can be like minority report and predict

[00:03:11] hero problems.

[00:03:13] My son just, my, my son would just brought up something about

[00:03:17] there's some going at some rap artists because they accused them of, of, of using AI.

[00:03:22] But I was like, wait, he used AI for his own voice.

[00:03:26] And apparently he may not have the facts.

[00:03:28] Right.

[00:03:29] But I was like, I don't think there's a problem with that.

[00:03:31] I was like, the problem is somebody taking our voices and trying to

[00:03:35] use it as their games.

[00:03:37] That's the problem taking other art.

[00:03:39] Like how that Drake, or is it Drake and somebody Kendrick, they write that.

[00:03:44] I wonder if that spark.

[00:03:45] Did that spark the beef?

[00:03:47] Hey, this is William Tencup work to find.

[00:03:49] Hey, listen, I'd like to talk to you a little bit about inside the C-suite, the podcast.

[00:03:54] It's a look into the journey of how one goes from high school, college, whatever,

[00:03:59] all the way to the C-suite, all the ups and downs, failure, successes, all that stuff.

[00:04:03] Give it a listen.

[00:04:04] Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:04:07] I don't even know what sparked the beef, right?

[00:04:09] Who cares?

[00:04:10] They just got record sales and record streams and all that.

[00:04:13] As long as they don't take it to real life.

[00:04:15] Rap beef is cool.

[00:04:17] Rap battling is part of the culture.

[00:04:19] Just don't make it Biggie Tupac thing where it got real and we lost two of the greatest MCs,

[00:04:25] two of the greatest hip hop artists that will ever be.

[00:04:28] That was senseless.

[00:04:30] That was unnecessary.

[00:04:31] You know what I mean?

[00:04:32] Oh my God.

[00:04:33] Speaking of hip hop, by the way, if we were talking real quick, I just saw a piece by

[00:04:37] piece.

[00:04:38] It's a Lego movie, but it's Pharrell Williams documentary.

[00:04:44] Oh, wow.

[00:04:45] Yep.

[00:04:46] That's cool.

[00:04:48] It's go see it with wifey.

[00:04:51] You will love it.

[00:04:52] I think you will love it.

[00:04:53] I think you will absolutely enjoy it.

[00:04:55] I saw I took the kid like I was the one that prompted it because I saw the preview for

[00:04:59] it and I was like, oh, I want to see this.

[00:05:03] I'm the one.

[00:05:03] I haven't seen a trailer or anything.

[00:05:05] Because you know what it is.

[00:05:05] I'm being kids movies.

[00:05:07] I saw the trailer at one of the other kids movies that we went to see and I was like,

[00:05:12] oh, mark that on the calendar.

[00:05:13] We're going to see that.

[00:05:14] Sure enough.

[00:05:15] Oh, yes.

[00:05:16] Okay.

[00:05:16] I'm going to check that out.

[00:05:17] Mad underrated.

[00:05:18] It's not, it's definitely not getting the love that it should be getting as a Lego movie,

[00:05:22] as a hip hop movie.

[00:05:24] Cause it's everything's about diddy.

[00:05:26] Oh my God.

[00:05:27] You see all this distractions of things.

[00:05:29] Yeah.

[00:05:30] Yeah.

[00:05:30] Man, forget him, bro.

[00:05:31] Like who really, who, and that's what my wife was saying.

[00:05:35] She's distractions, babe distractions.

[00:05:37] I was like, cause everything is diddy.

[00:05:38] Like all the feet, everything on the feed is come on.

[00:05:41] You know what I mean?

[00:05:42] Cause the, cause the part that is just cause we brought it up.

[00:05:45] We haven't talked about it on the show yet.

[00:05:47] The part that I would definitely not condone support in any way is any underage type of things.

[00:05:55] Right.

[00:05:55] I'm a father of daughters.

[00:05:57] Like I've, of you were doing that as you deplorable, like you horrible, you deserve every minute in jail that,

[00:06:03] you know, even with males, but no matter who, no matter who.

[00:06:06] Yeah.

[00:06:06] Oh God.

[00:06:07] No matter.

[00:06:08] Like that age thing is horrible.

[00:06:10] You know what I mean?

[00:06:11] Yeah.

[00:06:12] But his sexuality, if it's just a matter of his sexuality, then yeah.

[00:06:16] Hey, clearly he was in the closet.

[00:06:18] I think is what they're saying.

[00:06:19] I haven't gotten dug into any of it.

[00:06:21] I'm just, it's nonsense to me other than the illegal, illegal activity.

[00:06:27] He needs to cope.

[00:06:28] And if he's in jail, clearly they had enough to put them away.

[00:06:31] You know what I mean?

[00:06:31] Yeah.

[00:06:32] You got to pay your time, kid.

[00:06:34] Sorry.

[00:06:34] You were a predator, just like Hollywood and how they talk about the casting couch and all the horrible things

[00:06:40] that people in power do.

[00:06:43] Yeah.

[00:06:43] You know what I mean?

[00:06:44] I think it's karma.

[00:06:45] I think, Hey, you do the crime.

[00:06:46] You got to do the time.

[00:06:47] If karma comes back to you one way or another.

[00:06:49] And that's what it is.

[00:06:50] I agree, man.

[00:06:51] And Matt, look, we're going to that.

[00:06:53] We're going to segue.

[00:06:55] Yes.

[00:06:55] We're talking about, you mentioned Tupac.

[00:06:57] So today's topic is going to be about California.

[00:07:03] We don't have a producer folks.

[00:07:05] So we're all like, we're going to have to start throwing our old sound bites and exactly.

[00:07:16] You know what I mean?

[00:07:18] Going back to Cali.

[00:07:20] Yeah.

[00:07:21] People would love that.

[00:07:22] Yeah.

[00:07:22] Oh gosh.

[00:07:23] There's so many.

[00:07:24] Anywho.

[00:07:24] Yes.

[00:07:24] We are talking about California minimum wage today.

[00:07:27] We're getting in and just give you, give employees enough to be armed and dangerous and savvy with information.

[00:07:35] We want to empower y'all with information and resources and the tools and the savviness to go out there, find more information, do the research in the right spots.

[00:07:45] Go look at the right things.

[00:07:47] Right.

[00:07:47] You look this, the topics that we talk about are so, how can I say so big?

[00:07:54] There's so much information and everything that we only hope to give you enough to go get you fired up and research in the right places and learn the right things.

[00:08:04] We want to spark that interest.

[00:08:06] We want to spark that interest to be like, oh, what'd they say?

[00:08:08] Hold on.

[00:08:08] Let me go through my hand.

[00:08:09] On the phone every, anyway, right?

[00:08:11] We have the most powerful tool in the world in our hands.

[00:08:15] I get so frustrated in my kids when they ask me questions, because I'm like, you literally have a computer in your hand.

[00:08:22] You ain't even got a type.

[00:08:23] You could just ask Siri.

[00:08:24] Come on.

[00:08:25] You have magic in your hands.

[00:08:26] You got magic in your hands.

[00:08:27] Come on.

[00:08:27] What are you asking me for?

[00:08:28] Prodress.

[00:08:29] Google it.

[00:08:31] Siri.

[00:08:32] So, anywho, we're going to get into Cali minimum wage.

[00:08:35] But before that, we have some pay news to help and to drop the little nuggets here and there.

[00:08:40] Because we like current events.

[00:08:42] We like news.

[00:08:43] Stay informed.

[00:08:43] And of course, I don't know what the word is, but as always, we find the common threads in sync, even when

[00:08:53] we're not in sync.

[00:08:54] Because we prep, but we don't talk about every moment and every article that we're going to go pull.

[00:08:59] So, we both pulled fast food articles that have to do with California.

[00:09:04] Mine is about the fast food minimum wage that happened in California in the last year.

[00:09:12] Employers were like up in arms because of this new minimum wage.

[00:09:17] How could this be?

[00:09:19] We're going to lose our business.

[00:09:20] It's going to kill the industry.

[00:09:23] Because they don't, they balked at having to pay their workers more money.

[00:09:29] Heaven forbid you have to pay them a fair wage.

[00:09:32] You know what I mean?

[00:09:33] But survey says that none of those things happened.

[00:09:36] So, all these business owners said, oh, because the minimum wage is going to go up for fast food workers,

[00:09:41] I'm actually going to, we're going to lose workers.

[00:09:43] We're going to lose business.

[00:09:44] Our business is going to die.

[00:09:45] Right.

[00:09:46] Now, that may have happened for some businesses.

[00:09:49] It definitely did.

[00:09:50] It definitely did.

[00:09:51] Yep.

[00:09:51] It happened for some, but those are going to be businesses that are on the fringe of collapse

[00:09:55] anyway.

[00:09:56] You know what I mean?

[00:09:56] The pandemic got rid of those businesses that were just like on the fringe, right on the cusp

[00:10:02] of staying in business or going out of business.

[00:10:06] So that means you were about to, you were one thing away from going to business,

[00:10:09] going out of business anyway.

[00:10:11] And this just happened to be that thing.

[00:10:13] Right.

[00:10:13] Look, I'm a student of business and I get seemingly cold about how it plays out because

[00:10:19] I just understand the business of it all.

[00:10:21] And I get there are people on the other side of, I get it, but it business is business.

[00:10:26] It's one of the first things we learned at business school was business ethics is an oxymoron.

[00:10:31] So it doesn't always click like morality and the thing like it should.

[00:10:34] But when you go by business, it's not always going to take care of the people.

[00:10:38] So any who, there are some companies that had did go out of business because they couldn't

[00:10:44] afford to pay their people the $20.

[00:10:46] I think it was $20 an hour or something that I went up to in California just for fast food workers.

[00:10:53] Okay.

[00:10:53] Yeah.

[00:10:54] But the opposite happened.

[00:10:55] They just added more jobs in the most recent survey.

[00:10:58] Like they're up.

[00:11:00] So go fake.

[00:11:01] There you go.

[00:11:02] What's yours about, man?

[00:11:03] Mine is about something that happened at Taco Bell.

[00:11:05] Oh, my fame.

[00:11:06] I'm not.

[00:11:07] There was a franchisee who owned a couple of Taco Bells and subways in Northern California.

[00:11:12] Okay.

[00:11:13] What happened is that they cheated over 230 workers out of $4 million in wages.

[00:11:19] What?

[00:11:20] Yeah.

[00:11:20] How?

[00:11:21] Did they say how?

[00:11:22] Yeah.

[00:11:23] So the scheme involved them paying their employees below the minimum wage, denying overtime

[00:11:28] and making illegal deductions for meal breaks and cash shortages.

[00:11:33] Many of them didn't speak English.

[00:11:35] Is it?

[00:11:35] Were immigrants?

[00:11:36] And they were threatened with deportation or getting fired.

[00:11:40] They had illegal people working there too?

[00:11:43] Maybe on some visas, work visas.

[00:11:45] I don't know.

[00:11:46] I don't know everything, but look, they tried to...

[00:11:49] Multiple deductions here.

[00:11:50] Yeah.

[00:11:51] They also falsified payroll records.

[00:11:53] Oh my God.

[00:11:54] But it was one worker.

[00:11:56] It was that one worker.

[00:11:57] What do we always say?

[00:11:58] You speaking up.

[00:11:59] That's right.

[00:11:59] You may be that one domino that starts stretching.

[00:12:02] That's right.

[00:12:03] That one worker stood up and reported it to their local

[00:12:06] workers' rights center.

[00:12:08] And it sparked an investigation.

[00:12:10] No.

[00:12:10] And they found out that employees had been...

[00:12:12] They were earning less than $5 an hour after deductions in California.

[00:12:18] Oh, that's...

[00:12:19] Wait.

[00:12:19] There's been a boom.

[00:12:21] Wait.

[00:12:21] There's one more thing.

[00:12:22] That I really think is the shocker.

[00:12:24] It's the big twist here.

[00:12:25] So after their investigation, they found out that this person was tied to organized crime.

[00:12:30] Oh.

[00:12:31] And human trafficking.

[00:12:33] Oh.

[00:12:34] Oh.

[00:12:34] Oh.

[00:12:34] And so that's some of the workers, because some of the workers had been trafficked into

[00:12:37] the US and forced to work under the threat of violence.

[00:12:42] So by the end of 2020, the operators faced criminal charges and were ordered to pay millions in back

[00:12:48] wages.

[00:12:48] Yeah.

[00:12:49] Well, the articles are going to be in the show notes and stuff.

[00:12:52] I found that fascinating.

[00:12:53] Yeah.

[00:12:54] Yeah.

[00:12:54] It's so on point.

[00:12:55] On point with what we're talking about.

[00:12:57] Yeah.

[00:12:57] That's crazy, man.

[00:12:59] We keep finding this stuff.

[00:13:00] I swear to God, folks, we thought one day we were like, we're not going to find enough

[00:13:04] content in this arena.

[00:13:06] There's no way people are just going to continue to commit crimes and make their own crimes and

[00:13:11] do these same hero fraud.

[00:13:13] No.

[00:13:13] Wire fraud.

[00:13:14] It's not enough.

[00:13:14] No.

[00:13:15] Ghost employees.

[00:13:16] Cow.

[00:13:16] That temptation.

[00:13:17] It's the temptation.

[00:13:19] It comes back to that temptation to kill you every time.

[00:13:22] Oh, man.

[00:13:24] Before we get into it, let's pay some bills here.

[00:13:26] Shout out to time track.

[00:13:28] All right.

[00:13:29] Time track.

[00:13:29] Let's get it.

[00:13:30] All right.

[00:13:31] Are you tired of manual employee time tracking and error prone payroll processes?

[00:13:36] Discover how time track go can revolutionize your payroll and HR departments.

[00:13:41] That should be a word.

[00:13:42] The error prone payroll process.

[00:13:44] Say it five times fast.

[00:13:45] Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[00:13:46] We'll be ready.

[00:13:46] No, this is fine.

[00:13:48] But when I thought about when I read it the first time, I was like, oh man, we could loosen

[00:13:52] it up a little bit.

[00:13:53] So we just did.

[00:13:55] And time track go is having an upcoming webinar next Tuesday, October 29th at 2 p.m.

[00:14:02] Eastern to learn more about the file.

[00:14:04] What's up?

[00:14:05] Yeah.

[00:14:06] But by the time you hear this, it's going to be Tuesday.

[00:14:07] Oh, actually.

[00:14:08] It'll be next.

[00:14:08] Yes.

[00:14:09] When you hear this, it'll be like Tuesday that Tuesday.

[00:14:11] Yeah.

[00:14:11] So get on it.

[00:14:13] They're having a webinar time track.

[00:14:14] So the link to register will be in the show notes and it's also in the post when we post

[00:14:20] it wherever, but it's also in the show notes.

[00:14:23] Yeah.

[00:14:24] And so any who the webinar is going to cover a few different things.

[00:14:27] They're going to cover employee tracking for hourly and salary employees.

[00:14:31] They're going to cover streamlined payroll integration.

[00:14:35] They're going to cover the system.

[00:14:35] Because it integrates with mostly, I think every system.

[00:14:39] They're going to talk about the powerful mobile app that they have also with geofencing capabilities.

[00:14:45] They're going to talk about accurate PTO tracking and time off requests, all which you can do in the time

[00:14:51] track go system.

[00:14:52] They're going to use, they're going to talk about how you can use an ordinary tablet to do modern payroll,

[00:14:58] payroll employee time tracking.

[00:15:00] And last but not least, automatic holiday pay calculations, which we all know we need help

[00:15:07] with because sometimes it's manual and you don't want to have to do manual.

[00:15:10] We want to automate this stuff.

[00:15:12] You want to automate, you want to automate as much as you can.

[00:15:15] Shout out to time track go.

[00:15:16] Yep.

[00:15:17] Again, this webinar is Tuesday, October 29th at 2 PM Eastern.

[00:15:21] The link is going to be in our show notes, or you can go visit time track go.

[00:15:25] Yep.

[00:15:26] Dot com.

[00:15:27] See, and you can go on Facebook and LinkedIn to register as well.

[00:15:31] Let's let's go.

[00:15:33] Before we move on, I need to let you know about my friend, Mark Pfeffer and his show people tech.

[00:15:39] If you're looking for the latest on product development, marketing, funding, big deals happening

[00:15:45] in talent acquisition, HR, HCM.

[00:15:48] That's the show you need to listen to.

[00:15:51] Go to the work to find network, search up people tech, Mark Pfeffer.

[00:15:56] You can find them anywhere.

[00:16:00] All right.

[00:16:02] All right, folks.

[00:16:02] Now we are talking about the money, literally always the money, California minimum wage.

[00:16:09] And one of the things that like that I wanted to share with about California minimum wage is

[00:16:15] its complexity by like they get granular by city.

[00:16:20] So I'll start you off here.

[00:16:22] Here we go.

[00:16:23] On May, on, on May 1st.

[00:16:25] Well, I don't know why I say my first on January 1st, two 20, 24, the beginning of this year,

[00:16:32] California initiated, instituted a minimum wage of no less than $16 per hour, regardless of the

[00:16:41] size of their employer.

[00:16:42] Whoa, that's big too.

[00:16:44] Holy cow.

[00:16:46] So let me point, let me, let's talk about that for a quick moment because employees may not get it.

[00:16:51] You don't, you don't pay attention to it when you're an employee.

[00:16:53] Yeah.

[00:16:53] Some states break it minimum wage down by the size of the employer.

[00:17:00] Meaning if you're that small mom and pop, you got four employees and blah, blah, blah.

[00:17:04] Hey, maybe you can stick to the federal minimum wage.

[00:17:08] Okay.

[00:17:09] But if you're a large employer or midsize employer, depending on how the state breaks it down,

[00:17:15] then you have to abide by certain rules.

[00:17:18] Yeah.

[00:17:19] Callie said it does not matter what size you are.

[00:17:23] $16 an hour minimum across the state since January 1st of 2024.

[00:17:31] So if you are in California and you work as a W2 employee, okay, let me qualify that.

[00:17:38] If you're a 1099 contractor, you make your own rates.

[00:17:43] There are different things for 1099 contractors.

[00:17:45] This is not apply.

[00:17:46] This is a W2 employee.

[00:17:50] Anywhere in the state, any company in the state, as long as you're working legally, you are entitled to $16 per hour.

[00:17:57] Here's the catch that I was so excited to share.

[00:18:01] There are over 40 variables in the state of California, meaning there are 40 locales,

[00:18:11] state, city, county that pay at different rates.

[00:18:16] Different minimum wage.

[00:18:18] A different, thank you.

[00:18:19] A different minimum wage.

[00:18:21] And for instance, let me see if I can go here real quick.

[00:18:26] I was just going to throw out a couple examples, right?

[00:18:28] For instance, in Berkeley County, it's $18.67 minimum wage.

[00:18:35] Yeah.

[00:18:35] In Cupertino, $17.75 minimum wage.

[00:18:40] Yeah.

[00:18:41] L.A., $16.78, San Francisco's $18.07.

[00:18:45] I have $17.78 for L.A.

[00:18:48] Oh, wow.

[00:18:49] Okay.

[00:18:49] See what I'm saying?

[00:18:50] But see, I'm glad you said that because that is really my point.

[00:18:53] If you're in California, you need to look up your city, your county's minimum wage to make sure you're good.

[00:19:02] And let's clarify even one, qualify even one step further.

[00:19:05] It's where you work, right?

[00:19:07] You may live in L.A., but you work in Cupertino.

[00:19:10] That's probably not realistic, but you live in one and work in another.

[00:19:14] It's going to be where you work in that minimum wage is, right?

[00:19:18] So you can't be like, oh, the city I live in is more.

[00:19:20] No, the company is, that's where it's the minimum wage.

[00:19:25] So keep that in mind.

[00:19:26] If you're Cali and you're an employee in California,

[00:19:30] you can look up the minimum wage.

[00:19:34] And guess what?

[00:19:36] Berkeley.edu has an awesome breakdown.

[00:19:40] It will be in the show notes.

[00:19:42] City and county minimum wage ordinances.

[00:19:45] There are over 40 in California.

[00:19:49] Okay.

[00:19:49] It's not only the state, it's broken down by county and city.

[00:19:54] Yeah, because previously with the minimum wage,

[00:19:56] I'm so glad you said that about the differences, right?

[00:19:58] Because they changed it historically.

[00:20:01] So I think 2022, it was the year before they changed it.

[00:20:04] Because 2023 is when they made a level that no matter what size employer,

[00:20:08] you were going to be paid like 1550.

[00:20:10] But before that, there was a dollar difference.

[00:20:12] So if you worked in 2022, if you worked at an employer that had 25 employees or less,

[00:20:18] that was $14 an hour.

[00:20:19] If you had 26 or more, that was $15 an hour.

[00:20:22] Right?

[00:20:23] Right.

[00:20:23] So you would have to know as the employee,

[00:20:26] but how many people do you have working here?

[00:20:28] And I'm only getting paid this much.

[00:20:30] That's a problem.

[00:20:31] Exactly right.

[00:20:32] Oh, that's a great call out too.

[00:20:33] Because remember Tabitha Brown was on and she said she was paying at the time when she had

[00:20:37] her restaurant, she was paying her workers way up, like way above the minimum wage.

[00:20:43] Right.

[00:20:43] Right.

[00:20:44] And then kind of Cali caught up and started paying more as well.

[00:20:48] Yeah.

[00:20:49] So yeah, no, and that's why that's, that was my whole point is it could be so different.

[00:20:54] Make sure you're looking at accurate information.

[00:20:56] Make sure the website that you use is, even though I called out Berkeley's website,

[00:21:02] you use that to double check it. Hey, Berkeley saying that Los Angeles is this. Let me go look

[00:21:08] at Los Angeles city's government's website, minimum wage. That's where the truth, that's like the

[00:21:13] record of truth is the city's website, not another website. Shout out to Berkeley for doing this

[00:21:19] because it's a dope and it looks very up to date, but you double check it, especially if you're trying

[00:21:24] to go to your employer and you're going to say, Hey, you're not paying me properly. You want to

[00:21:30] definitely reference something that they have to abide by as well.

[00:21:35] Yeah. And look for the employee, right? There's like an example that I gave earlier about Taco Bell,

[00:21:40] the franchisee that was a pain, it was a short pain, the immigrants and not the non citizen or immigrant

[00:21:47] employees. Even if you are an immigrant employee, you still have certain rights to be paid. Absolutely.

[00:21:53] So speak up. Yeah. So just employees before I let you, before Walt shares the employer piece,

[00:22:00] I'll let you know as an employee, check your pay stubs, look at, look at your rates. And then Cali

[00:22:05] has a very strict, Oh, we should do that too. What has to be on a pay stub in Cali? Let's do that.

[00:22:12] And then, so one is check your pay stub. Two is report violations. If your employer will politely go

[00:22:17] to the employer, I would try, Hey, I would say, Hey, politely go to your employer first. And if they're

[00:22:23] not responding, report them. And then the last thing, stay informed about the wage increases in

[00:22:29] your, where you are. And it could be just as a matter of stay informed. People like, Hey, look it

[00:22:34] up every now and then. Hey, you know what? Let me check. It's been a while. Let me check the minimum

[00:22:37] wage. Make sure it didn't go up or not. That's it.

[00:22:40] And look, as the employer, you want to make sure that you're doing the same thing, right? Because this is a

[00:22:45] change that occurred, right? It used to be one way a couple of years ago. And now it's different.

[00:22:49] Like I alluded to, no matter what the employer size is, the state minimum wage is now $20 an hour

[00:22:56] as of January 1st, 2024. Right. So you want to make sure and do your research as the employer,

[00:23:02] just like the employee should do. You want to see what local jurisdiction you are in because they may

[00:23:07] enforce a higher local minimum wage and employers need to comply with that, right? You either comply or

[00:23:14] you fry it, right? I love it. So you know what I'm saying? Fly or fry.

[00:23:18] Yeah. By 2025, California's minimum wage is expected to continue increasing based on inflation.

[00:23:26] Oh, dang. So that was, yeah, that was determined by California's Department of Finance

[00:23:31] during their annual assessment. So you want to make sure that you're aware of this as an employer

[00:23:35] and account for any potential increases in your budgeting and your payroll processes. So what are

[00:23:42] those key considerations? Compliance. As I just said, comply or fry. That's where both state and local

[00:23:48] wages, right? I love it. Comply. Those laws. Yeah. And then wage compression. Challenges that occur as

[00:23:55] wages rise, right? So you may need to adjust wages for higher paid employees to maintain equitable

[00:24:01] pay structures. I just learned about wage compression this past year, by the way.

[00:24:05] Yeah. Me too. Me too. Me too. But you want to conduct constant payroll audits. That's something you

[00:24:11] want to do anyway as an employer. Yes. If you're right. Yeah. If you're the employer, you're the payroll pro,

[00:24:16] there should be audits on your schedule. Yep. You want to make sure that whether you're in HR or payroll,

[00:24:22] somebody should be doing this audit to assure that employees are being paid in accordance with the law,

[00:24:27] right? And you want to anticipate any increased costs in overtime, right? And any other wage-based

[00:24:35] benefits that are tied to the minimal wage levels, right? So these are all things that you want to make

[00:24:41] sure that you're addressing as the employer, right? And look, because if you're not doing right by the

[00:24:49] employees, eventually somebody is going to, you're going to get the right one there. When I say that,

[00:24:54] the right one's going to show up and they're going to report everything. Yep. And you're going to have

[00:24:58] to do it anyway. And you're going to take a, potentially as a business, you may take a blow

[00:25:02] to your company's reputation and people might not want to work for you or anything like that. Yep. And

[00:25:08] it may impact the business. So just do the right thing now. Yeah. Yeah. Karma's a mother-er, man.

[00:25:12] Like it'll come back to you for sure. Sure will. Yep. Nice. All right. With that being said,

[00:25:20] we're going to end it out with our safe talk question. Safe talk. Yep. And then

[00:25:25] yeah. So is California's annual inflation-based minimum wage adjustment enough to ensure that

[00:25:32] employees can keep up with the state's high cost of living, or do we need a more proactive approach

[00:25:37] to wage increases? Hi, I'm Steven Rothberg. And I'm Jeanette Leeds. And together, we're the co-hosts

[00:25:43] of the High Volume Hiring Podcast. Are you involved in hiring dozens or even hundreds of employees a year?

[00:25:49] If so, you know that the typical sourcing tools, tactics, and strategies, they just don't scale.

[00:25:55] Yeah. Our bi-weekly podcast features news, tips, case studies, and interviews with the world's leading

[00:26:01] experts about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to high volume hiring.

[00:26:06] Make sure to subscribe today.

[00:26:09] What do you think?

[00:26:10] Man, for me, look, I think California is already very employee-centric. So I think that their

[00:26:17] finance department of finance is taking that into account already. And they have to balance it out.

[00:26:23] It just can't go tilt one way. It's a fine line.

[00:26:26] I mean, you said it's a balance.

[00:26:27] Well, it's like on that balancing beam or the tight rope, you know what I'm saying? You have to

[00:26:32] balance it out and you have to be meticulous with it and you have to do it in the right way.

[00:26:37] Because you lean one way too far to the right, you might fall, it might cause something to break

[00:26:43] or something to go awry.

[00:26:44] Yep. You know what I'm saying?

[00:26:45] So I think that they're doing a good job.

[00:26:49] And look, there's always, no matter what, there's no perfect process. There's no perfect

[00:26:55] system as of yet, right? There's nothing perfect yet. Maybe AI will help us get closer to that

[00:27:01] perfection. But look, there's always going to be something that can be done better in a better way.

[00:27:06] And that's why I think, I think that they're doing a good job. I don't know if anything could be

[00:27:11] done to be more proactive about that. What about you?

[00:27:14] No, I think that's the answer. Like I just looked up to see, oh, there are, okay,

[00:27:22] 15 states and the District of Columbia index their minimum wage to inflation,

[00:27:28] meaning that the minimum wage increases automatically each year based on the cost of living.

[00:27:33] Okay. So there you go, California being one of them. And there's 14 others that do it as well.

[00:27:40] So that's interesting. Why doesn't every state do it? You know what I mean?

[00:27:45] So look, now with that being said, the average cost of living in California in 2024 is around $53,000 a year.

[00:27:56] Okay.

[00:27:57] So I know minimum wage, $16 an hour. That's about $33,000.

[00:28:04] It takes two.

[00:28:05] It takes two people.

[00:28:07] It takes two people.

[00:28:11] Yup. Exactly.

[00:28:12] So two people should be able to do it.

[00:28:17] Yeah.

[00:28:18] But yeah, I mean, I was out in Cali in the last few months as well.

[00:28:22] And same thing. I was talking to business owners and then they were like, man, you know, I wish my,

[00:28:27] my people could buy homes and stuff like that. But like, it's so expensive. This area and that

[00:28:32] area is so expensive. And, you know, it's, and that's the case a lot of places now, I think post pan,

[00:28:40] I think pandemic really messed it up. Although I am seeing like things tend to correct itself.

[00:28:46] The mandate back to work and they're changing the, the folks is like, um, you know, a lot. Well, companies did it right away. Right. When they were like, oh, you want to,

[00:28:56] you moved without telling us great. We're going to adjust your salary to where you move to.

[00:29:01] Oh, it might work against them too.

[00:29:03] I'm working against them. This is what I'm saying.

[00:29:04] Yeah.

[00:29:04] People took a lot of liberties in pandemic. They were like, oh, I'm moving across the country. I work remote now.

[00:29:10] Not even thinking that, hey, it might be a one day come back to the office.

[00:29:15] Yeah. There's a lot of auto correction for that, but look, I think they're doing the right thing.

[00:29:19] They, them and 14 other states are doing it right. Does it solve the problem? No.

[00:29:24] There's a part of me that believes that the American dream is built on always running for that carrot.

[00:29:29] Right. The carrot or the stick.

[00:29:32] And you say we're out constantly in the hamster wheel.

[00:29:34] Yep.

[00:29:35] Yep.

[00:29:36] Yep.

[00:29:36] Yep.

[00:29:36] No matter what.

[00:29:37] No matter what. There are folks that break out of it, but yeah, you're, you're, you know, can you do that?

[00:29:43] And it's just financial freedom.

[00:29:46] And then.

[00:29:46] Oh yeah.

[00:29:47] I heard that once you get a taste of that financial freedom, you never want to go back.

[00:29:51] I believe it.

[00:29:52] You can walk it.

[00:29:52] Yeah.

[00:29:52] I believe it.

[00:29:53] I believe it.

[00:29:54] That's it folks.

[00:29:55] Check us out for the next one.

[00:29:56] We're definitely going to do Cali paycheck rules.

[00:30:00] There are certain rules that folks should like, there are things that have to be on California pay stubs.

[00:30:06] Other states are not as strict.

[00:30:08] So let's definitely touch that.

[00:30:11] Get that for the employees.

[00:30:12] Keep keeping two for that.

[00:30:14] And until the next time we love you.

[00:30:17] We love you.

[00:30:18] Peace.

[00:30:20] Before we sign off, here are a couple of quick things.

[00:30:23] Don't forget to follow.

[00:30:24] It's about payroll on LinkedIn, and it's about your paycheck on Facebook and tick tock.

[00:30:30] Thank you for being part of our payroll community, and thank you for being a part of this journey with us.

[00:30:36] Until the next time, keep learning, keep growing, and most importantly, keep going.