The economic challenge
Now that the election is over, the focus should be on creating good jobs
Councilman Eric Garcetti won the mayoral election. Now the most important job begins: for winners and losers to work together to tackle the city’s huge problems.
The upcoming administration faces numerous challenges, like the budget deficit, municipal services and future labor negotiations, among others. However, the main thing is creating jobs with decent salaries and benefits.
A few years ago, United Way Los Angeles published a series of studies called “Los Angeles: Tale of Two Cities,” which pointed out the wealth gap that divided the city into two separate universes for the rich and the poor.
For example, estimates show that more than 20% of the population lives below the poverty linecompared with the state average of 14%, according to census data.
This means that a large amount of workers earn salaries that keep them in the depths of poverty. The worst part is that the majority work in areas related to tourism, one of our city’s most solid industries.
These workers with poverty-level salaries, no matter which sector of the economy they work in, deserve to be consumers who move the economy with their spending instead of depending on public aid because their salaries are insufficient.
Almost at the end of this election campaign, a proposal to raise the wages of hotel workers came up. This was a good idea that seemed more like a campaign maneuver than a serious, well-thought-out offer.
The election ended. We hope all the candidatesas well as those who spent more than $30 million in campaign funds for one candidate or anothernow work for the progress of Los Angeles.
The future of Los Angeles requires everyone’s contributions to create a solid economy. In that future, work must be one path to get ahead financially and avoid the quicksand of poverty.
