“City Limited” ~ Minimum Wage Billboard Campaign

Have you seen the "City Limited" billboards up around Los Angeles, including by LAX, on freeways, and in other highly-visible locations? The Ads are simple and stark, but are hoping to start a conversation and raise awareness of working poverty in Los Angeles. Designed to look like the green city limits signs, they instead say "City Limited, Poverty Wage Pop. 810,000".

The campaign is being run by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, who say that 810,000 men and women in the city of Los Angeles live on "poverty wages"; in other words, they estimate that many people in our city work either full or part-time, but still can't earn enough money to escape the poverty line. The union suggests that the city adopt a minimum wage of $15/hour to help change this. The billboard campaign is part of a larger move to put pressure on city and industry leaders to raise wages in low-wage jobs in L.A. You can read more about the campaign with this insightful interview from KCRW with Maria Elena Durazo.