Mayor Lee faces question on minimum wage

Pub date May 13, 2014
WriterRebecca Bowe
SectionPolitics Blog

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee will attend the Board of Supervisors meeting today [Tue/13] to participate in “question time” – that exhilarating moment where the city’s highest-ranking official responds to pre-submitted questions with carefully crafted answers.

Today, Lee faces a question about raising the minimum wage, per District 1 Sup. Eric Mar:

“Mayor Lee, San Francisco is now the city with the fastest-growing gap between rich and poor. Yet, we have not raised our minimum wage in a decade. Washington, D.C., Seattle, and Oakland, among other cities, have recently moved to raise their minimum wage. … Some labor groups in the City have proposed to increase the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. … Can you share what level you are currently considering increasing the minimum wage to and how you plan on mitigating impacts on small businesses and non-profits?”

Which makes us wonder, will Lee name an actual dollar amount that he and a group of stakeholders he’s convened are considering increasing the minimum wage to?

Or will he stick to the vague answer he gave radio host Michael Krasny in a recent interview on KQED’s Forum? (“I said I was open to up to $15 an hour,” the mayor said in that interview, “and I didn’t state a number at the beginning.”)