California is going to raise the minimum wage to $15

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minimum wage
Protesters calling for higher wages for fast-food workers stand outside a McDonald's restaurant in Oakland, California December 5, 2013. REUTERS/Noah Berger

In California, legislators and labor unions have made a deal to raise the minimum wage to $15, the Los Angeles Times reports

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State governor Jerry Brown is expected to make an announcement on the issue as soon as Monday. 

The wage would reportedly ramp up over the next several years, going from $10 to $10.50 an hour in 2017, $11 an hour in 2018, and $1 more every year until 2022, landing at $15 an hour. 

The deal was reached without campaigning, and The Los Angeles Times reports that the deal was made without much input from business groups. 

This is big news because California is, in many ways, a nation unto itself. At 39 million people, it's the most populous state in the union, and it has a gross statewide product that would make it the eighth-largest economy on Earth if it were its own country, just behind Brazil. 

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The wage increase will affect millions of people in California, and it's probably going to push the issue further into the presidential race, especially for Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton

This comes after the Canadian province of Ontario announced an experiment with basic income.

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