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Politics

Roundtable: Rise In Minimum Wage Impacts Workers, Businesses

Minimum wage advocates rally in front of a McDonalds restaurant, Feb. 12, 2018.
Matt Hoffman/KPBS
Minimum wage advocates rally in front of a McDonalds restaurant, Feb. 12, 2018.

Roundtable Guests:

Priya Sridhar, reporter, KPBS News

Charles Clark, reporter, The San Diego Union-Tribune

Seth Combs, former editor, San Diego CityBeat

Minimum wage goes up

2020 began with a statewide rise in the minimum wage of $1 per hour. For businesses with fewer than 25 employees, the wage will go from $11 to $12 an hour. For larger businesses, it will go from $12 to $13 per hour. The state wants to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2023. Some small businesses, like Corbin's BBQ in the college area, say they will have to raise prices.

RELATED: San Diego Businesses React To Minimum Wage Hike

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Fletcher targets mental health for new initiatives

Nathan Fletcher began his first term as the lone Democrat on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors pushing the board toward action on energy and child welfare initiatives. In 2020, Fletcher says he will continue to push for more action and spending on behavioral health. The county's 2020 budget includes additional spending on Health and Human Services, 143 new positions in Behavioral Health Services and funds to turn a county-owned building in Hillcrest into a regional mental health hub.

CityBeat is now completely different

For a couple of decades, San Diego CityBeat was a fiesty upstart alt weekly covering local news, politics and the arts with a decidedly progressive tone. Southland Publishing sold CityBeat to Arizona-based Times Media Group, which eventually laid off nearly all the staff and deleted its years of archives. Former San Diego CityBeat editor talks about what happened and why as well as the national trend of shrinking local news coverage.

VIDEO: Roundtable: Rise In Minimum Wage Impacts Workers, Businesses