If a coalition of labor groups and community organizers gets their way, the hourly minimum wage in Alameda County for companies with 100 or more employees could double in the next few years.

Given the high cost of living in California, the debate over the minimum wage comes up fairly often. And with inflation and continually rising housing costs, it should be a surprise to no one that minimum-wage workers would like to be paid a bit more, just to get by.

And the latest salvo, which is likely to be met with resistance from the business community, is a push for a $30 per hour minimum wage in Alameda County — where the current minimum wage mandate in multiple cities hovers between $17 and $19, with a state minimum wage of $16.90 per hour applying to all unincorporated areas.

As KTVU reports, a coalition of activists and organizers are launching a ballot initiative campaign to have Alameda County's minimum wage hiked to $30 per hour. This would apply to all businesses with over 100 employees beginning in 2030, and to smaller businesses by 2040 — giving them 14 years to phase in the higher wage.

The initiative is being led by the Black Organizing Project and One Fair Wage, and once the ballot prop is filed, the groups will have 180 days to gather signatures to qualify for the November 2026 ballot.

California already mandates a $20 per hour minimum wage for fast-food workers, statewide. San Francisco's minimum wage, as of July 2025, is $19.18 per hour, up from $16 just five years ago.

Meanwhile the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, and that has been unchanged since 2009 because Republicans do not care about poor people.

Workers in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Wyoming, where there either is no state minimum or where the minimum wage on the books is still under $7.25, are still paid at the federal minimum level.

With no change in 17 years, the federal minimum wage has now gone the longest without being updated since it was first introduced in 1938.

Photo by Matthieu Terle