San Diego’s 2025 minimum wage rate, cost-of-living gap, and local labor rules affect how workers and employers manage pay. Hourly wage facts, sick leave rules, safe time, notice postings, retaliation limits, and investigation steps are clearly explained.
By Brad Nakase, Attorney
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San Diego’s minimum wage stands at $16.30 an hour (as of 1st Jan 2023). This exceeds the typical minimum wage of CA, which is $15/hour. It’s also much more than the minimum wage required by the federal government, which is $7.25 an hour.
The minimum wage was $10.50/hour in the year 2016 (San Diego). The minimum wage, which is presently $16.30 per hour, is expected to increase more in the coming years. The minimum wage in the city of San Diego has been rising gradually for a decade.
San Diego is expensive and has a greater cost of living than the average in the country; thus, its minimum wage exceeds the minimum wage in the country. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, an adult alone has to earn $22.61 each hour in San Diego to afford a living wage. The present minimum wage in San Diego is therefore insufficient to sustain an independent adult.
California has more stringent labor regulations than the federal government, which is another reason why the minimum wage in San Diego is higher than the national average. In addition to having a state minimum pay that is more than the federal government’s minimum wage, California permits counties and localities to establish their own minimum wages.
The hourly rate that a worker must make in San Diego to maintain a minimal standard of living is known as the livable wage. A single adult living in San Diego needs to make $22.61 an hour in order to live comfortably (MIT Living Wage Calculator). This indicates that a single adult residing alone cannot be supported by the current minimum wage in San Diego. The number of kids and the composition of the household determine a family’s livable salary in San Diego. For instance, to live comfortably, a family with four members, including two kids, must make $54,342 annually.
It is important to remember that the above-presented information of the Hourly Salary Index was of gross wages, the income of a worker before the consideration of payroll deductions, including the benefits, taxes, and wage garnishments of the employee. This is because, due to regional differences in the tax rates, relatively lower gross salaries in a given location may actually amount to a higher take-home figure in another location or the other way round.
Answering this topic is challenging because a “good hourly salary” depends on a variety of subjective factors, including experience, work duties, expenses for living, and others. As a place to begin, we suggest utilizing Hourly Wage Index data. Do more research on comparable companies in your area after you have set the standard for certain positions. Finally, think about doing employee surveys. They are the greatest source of information about what constitutes a fair hourly rate, what constitutes competitive pay in your area, and how competitive salaries evolve over the years in your sector.
Competitive remunerations are one of my primary objectives. Do you have any other resources that you may provide to be helpful?
We can give you an idea of the fact that one of the determinants of ensuring applications is the competitive salary, and this can be very challenging. But wages are not everything! Another important aspect that might help you stand out from the competition is candidate experience. Here are several examples:
Each employee must receive earned sick leave from their employer. For every thirty hours worked inside the city’s borders, employees must accrue at least one hour of sick leave; companies may cap the total amount of sick leave accrued at eighty hours. Sick leave accumulated but not used must be rolled over to the next benefit year.
If a worker receives at least forty hours of earned sick time at the start of every benefit year, employers may meet the accrual & carry-over requirements. During a benefit year, employers may restrict an employee’s use of accrued sick leave to 40 hours. Employees can utilize their earned sick leave for any of the causes listed in Section 39.0106(a), including but not restricted to taking time off for their own or a family member’s medical needs.
An alternative approach may be used by the employer to calculate, pay, and use earned sick leave or earned time off if the employer offers more paid time off through a collective bargaining contract, employment benefit plan, or other arrangement than the employee would have gotten under the Ordinance’s provisions.
Safe Time refers to time off work that is required because of sexual assault, domestic abuse, or stalking. When an employee accumulates sick leave hours, they can use them for Safe Time for themselves or a family member, such as their spouse, child, child’s parent, sibling, parent, grandparent, grandchild, or child of their domestic partner or spouse. Employers are required to permit workers to utilize Safe Time to access any of the listed services, and retaliation is forbidden:
Employers are required to prominently display the notifications that the City publishes each year at any job site or workplace where any employees work. Every employer is also required to give written notice to each employee at the point of hiring or by 1st Oct 2016, whichever comes first, about the company’s legal name, any false business name, address, and phone number, as well as the employer’s obligations under the Ordinance and how they are met, including how they accrue sick leave. In place of a paper notice, this notification may be sent via an easily available electronic communication.
Employers are not allowed to take adverse action against workers who exercise any of the rights granted by the Paid Sick Leave & Minimum Wage Regulations. This includes, but isn’t restricted to, the ability to request a minimum wage in San Diego, request and make use of earned sick leave, or report an infraction to the company or an agency of the government. Any kind of retaliation against a worker for using their rights within the Ordinance includes threats, disciplinary actions, termination, demotion, suspension, decrease of work hours, and other unfavorable employment actions.
The Program’s Focused Investigation yearly work plan, official complaints, tips, or confidential data obtained may all serve as the basis for the start of an investigation.
1. Investigations based on complaints
Employees can make a complaint with the Minimum Wage Program (City of San Diego) by filling out a Complaint Form if they feel their rights pursuant to the Earned Sick Leave & Minimum Wage Ordinance have been infringed. The form is accessible in multiple languages. For a paper version of the Complaint Statement Form, workers can also get in touch with the Minimum Wage Program.
Before beginning any investigation, the employee or complainant shall be contacted if more information is required. It is also possible to send anonymous complaints, suggestions, or other information about possible Ordinance infractions.
2. Directed Investigations
The goal of directed investigations is to support low-wage, vulnerable workers in sectors where data indicates that infractions are likely to happen and that workers are unlikely to report them. Businesses chosen for a directed inquiry must adhere to the Ordinance governing their requirements throughout the enforcement procedure, even if no complaint was filed.
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