Santa Clara County supervisors passed a new living wage measure Tuesday touted by some to be the most comprehensive in the nation.
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors passed the Living Wage Ordinance by a 3-1 vote with one abstention.
The proposed law will require every employer who does business with the county to pay a minimum hourly wage of $19.06 per hour. A living wage ordinance differs from minimum wage laws in that it incorporates health care and other standard-of-living requirements.
"Decades of experience from other jurisdictions with living wage policies have shown that competition among bidders for local government contracts discourages vendors from driving up bids," staff wrote in a report.
To compare, San Jose's minimum wage, as of Jan. 1, 2014, rose from $10 to $10.15 an hour. San Jose enacted a living wage policy in 1998, and to date, county officials noted, there has not been any significant impacts during that time.
