Charlotte city employees will have a $15 minimum wage in 3 years

Bernie Sanders has made it one of his primary platform points, and places like Seattle and Portland have set that level for businesses in their cities.

Charlotte currently has a minimum wage of $12.98 for city government workers — but it is likely to increase every year.

The city has pegged its minimum wage to 60 percent of the area median income, which in the most recent year came out $45,000. Sixty percent of that is $27,000, meaning a $12.98 minimum hourly wage.

This year the median income is being adjusted to $47,100. Sixty percent of that would be $28,260 — or $13.58.

Similarly, the minimum wage is expected to increase over time until it hits $15 per hour around the 2020 fiscal year.

Image via the city of Charlotte

This will not apply to private businesses.

The City Council has not seriously considered implementing this in the past, mostly because the state legislature passed a law in 2013 that keeps cities from raising the minimum wage in their territory.

House Bill 2 (which overrode Charlotte’s LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance) went farther in disallowing cities from imposing new wage and hour guidelines on private industry.

North Carolina’s minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.