The minimum wage in California is currently at ten dollars per hour, while the minimum wage for Sunnyvale is ten dollars and thirty cents. The Sunnyvale City Council held a meeting to discuss the minimum wage of Sunnyvale. The Sunnyvale minimum wage was raised from nine dollars per hour to ten dollars and thirty cents per hour on January 1, 2016 even though not required to follow the state’s minimum wage law. Sunnyvale, being a charter city, can follow its own charter document rather than the state law. The Sunnyvale City Council voted to raise the minimum wage to ten dollars and thirty cents per hour starting January 1st and will rise up to fifteen dollars by July 2018. The wage will start at ten dollars and thirty cents and rise to eleven dollars starting July 2016, then rise again to thirteen dollars in July 2017, and finally will rest at fifteen dollars an hour in July 2018. Keeping the minimum wage in the Bay Area higher than the rest of California ensures that the area remains a competitive place for people to work in.

The minimum wage increase was tied to the inflation in the cost of living in the Bay Area. According to KQED News, it costs roughly seventy-nine thousand dollars per year for a family of four to live comfortably in the San Jose and Sunnyvale area. More than twice the federal poverty line is required to get by in the Bay Area. As stated by the EPI( Economic Policy Institute), a nonprofit think tank, it costs around 84,461 dollars per year, and 7,038 dollars per month, to live comfortably in the San Jose, Sunnyvale and Santa Clara area, while it only costs 60,608 dollars per year, and 5,051 dollars per month, to live the Houston, Baytown, and Sugar Land area in Texas. The EPI calculations include costs for housing, food, child care, transportation, health care, other necessities, and taxes. Housing eats up roughly 23.4%, 1,649 dollars, of total monthly costs in the Bay area, which is 32.5% more than the median family budget area of 5,312 dollars per month and 63,471 dollars per year. The EPI calculations for housing costs 18.3%, 926 dollars, of the monthly total in Texas. This is actually 4.9% less than the median family budget area.

The minimum wage in Houston, Texas is seven dollars and twenty-five cents an hour, which adds up to 15,080 dollars per year. This is 7,270 dollars under the federal poverty level of 22,350 dollars. With the new minimum wage in California, the yearly salary is 21,424 dollars. Even if both parents, in a family of four, worked minimum wage jobs, the family still would struggle to live in the Bay Area as the average cost is 84,461 dollars. Two people living together in Houston working minimum wage jobs would earn a total of 30,160 dollars, which is enough to live just above the poverty line in the area. However, if the same two people were to work minimum wage jobs in the Bay Area, the total is 42,848 dollars, which is over the federal poverty line, but under the average cost of living here, 55,377 dollars. The average salary of a software engineer in the Houston area is 96,622 dollars per year, while the average for a software engineer in the Bay Area is 113,363 dollars. These comparisons show that while housing is more expensive here in the Bay Area, the salary is also greater here than in other places.

Raising the minimum wage also brings predicaments for small shop owners, who would have to fire some workers to keep up with the rising minimum wage. This would only solve the problem for those that don’t get fired, as the ones who do wouldn’t have a job at all. Minimum wage jobs should be used as supplemental jobs, not the primary source of income as it isn’t possible to break the chains of poverty working a minimum wage job for a living.