Nonprofits that hire and train disadvantaged and out-of-work clients to rejoin the workforce won't have to pay them Los Angeles' new minimum wage for the first year and a half of their employment, Los Angeles City Council members agreed Tuesday.
The council action, which directs city attorneys to draft the proposed rules, marks an important step toward approval of the first major exemption to a recently adopted plan to hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.
Nonprofits such as Homeboy Industries, which helps train former inmates; Chrysalis, which works with the homeless and other disadvantaged clients; and the Los Angeles Conservation Corps have warned that, without the exemption, increased labor costs would require them to reduce the number of people they serve.