Santa Monica Releases Study on Wage Issues

A study of Santa Monica’s so-called living wage proposal contends that workers at the city’s luxury beach side hotels, restaurants and retail shops live at or below the poverty line, while business revenues and hotel occupancy rates have boomed.

The release of the city-commissioned report this week is considered an important step in the debate over a controversial proposal being considered by the Santa Monica City Council. If the council passed a living wage law as described in the study, 2,477 workers at 72 beach-area businesses would receive pay hikes to a $10.75-an-hour minimum.

Service employees such as housekeepers and kitchen workers at the 11 beachside hotels now earn a median annual income of $19,000 a year, according to the study. The Los Angeles-area poverty line is $21,475 for a family of three, the report states.

Meanwhile, Santa Monica’s high-end hotels have increased their nightly room rates by 68.5%, from $143 in 1994 to $241 in April 2000, the report states.

“We did feel there was a concentration of low-wage workers in the coastal zone, but it’s helpful to have it backed up by a study,” said Vivian Rothstein, a living wage proponent and community activist. “It gives all of us information we need to craft an ordinance.”