Minimum Wage Increase Raises Hopes

Jennifer Molina earns nearly a buck more an hour than the current minimum wage scooping ice cream at Baskin & Robbins in Santa Ana. But she figures she’ll be getting a raise after this week’s Senate passage of a higher minimum wage.

How so? Simple, says Molina, a 17-year-old student at Calvary Chapel High School. When the new minimum wage ($5.15 an hour) takes effect next year, Molina expects management to bump up her pay as well, so she and other experienced workers will stay reasonably ahead of the new hires coming in at the new minimum rate.

“If I’ve been working here longer, I should get more than minimum wage,” Molina says.

Her assumption might not hold, but expectations like Molina’s present a tricky problem for employers, especially if they want to keep experienced help.

Kelly Snyder, Molina’s boss, says she wouldn’t be surprised if employees like Molina wind up getting raises. When the bottom goes up, Snyder says, it often pushes everyone up. In fact, she says that’s what happened at her ice cream shop the last time the minimum wage went up, in 1988.

Don Lee covers workplace issues for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7407 and at don.lee@latimes.com.