San Jose voters decided on Tuesday to increase the city's hourly wage minimum to $10 as most feel it is impossible to live in the city making anything under that amount.
The legislation received 59 percent of the votes it needed to approve the new wage increase, making San Jose only the fifth city in the nation to determine its own minimum wage according to The Los Angeles Times. The other four include Santa Fe, Washington, D.C., Albuquerque, N.M. and San Francisco.
"We're thrilled," Stacey Hendler Ross, spokeswoman for the South Bay AFL-CIO Council, told the San Jose Mercury News late Tuesday as the vote count wore on. "We always thought San Jose voters would know the right thing to do."
The idea to formally raise minimum wage in the city was thought up by San Jose University sociology students, and after getting back by major labor organizations, the plan made the officially made the ballot Tuesday night. The group raised over $278,000 to back the proposed wage increase according to The Mercury News.
The results of the wage increase were heavily followed on major news stations like CNN, NBC, and Fox News.
Not everybody was crazy about the idea however.
The San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce and other city business organizations opposed the measure before the election, claiming that it would ultimately force employers to cut worker hours and jobs, as well as preventing new businesses from joining the city.
Those against the new deal raised over $412,600 to help make sure the mandate wasn't passed on Tuesday.
"I think it will hurt us in the long run," said Amanda Phan, a 25-year-old assistant manager at a San Jose restaurant to The Mercury News. "I started working when the minimum wage was $5 an hour. That motivated me to find a better job and go to school."
Mayor Chuck Reed never officially took a position on the wage increase. The current hourly minimum wage for workers in San Jose is $8 an hour and will be bumped up to $10 this January.
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