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Minimum Wage Initiative Enters Circulation

Minimum Wage. Increase. Initiative Statute.

SACRAMENTO - Secretary of State Debra Bowen today announced the proponent of a new initiative may begin collecting petition signatures for his measure.

The Attorney General prepares the legal title and summary that is required to appear on initiative petitions. When the official language is complete, the Attorney General forwards it to the proponent and to the Secretary of State, and the initiative may be circulated for signatures. The Secretary of State then provides calendar deadlines to the proponent and to county elections officials. The Attorney General's official title and summary for the measure is as follows:

MINIMUM WAGE. INCREASE. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Under existing law, California's minimum wage will increase from $8.00 per hour to $9.00 per hour, effective July 1, 2014. This measure would increase California's minimum wage to $10.00 per hour, effective March 1, 2015, and then to $12.00 per hour, effective March 1, 2016. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Increase or decrease in state and local tax revenues of uncertain magnitude, potentially totaling hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Changes in state revenues would affect the amount of required state funding for schools and community colleges. Increase in state and local government costs for service providers and government employees potentially totaling in the high hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Potential increase or decrease of hundreds of millions of dollars in other annual state and county expenditures on health and social services programs, with net savings more likely than net cost increases. (13-0045.)

The Secretary of State's tracking number for this measure is 1634 and the Attorney General's tracking number is 13-0050.

The proponent for the measure, Ron Unz, must collect signatures of 504,760 registered voters (five percent of the total votes cast for governor in the 2010 gubernatorial election) in order to qualify it for the ballot. The proponent has 150 days to circulate petitions for the measures, meaning the signatures must be submitted to county elections officials by June 26, 2014.

The proponent can be reached at info@ronunz.org. No phone number was provided.

To sign up for regular ballot measure updates via email, RSS feed, or Twitter, go to www.sos.ca.gov/multimedia.

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