The Mayor of Washington, D.C., vetoed a polarizing bill that would force the city’s largest retailers, including Walmart and Target, to pay employees a higher minimum wage, setting the stage for a potential veto override by the city council.
The “living wage bill,” as proponents call it, requires large retailers to pay workers $12.50 per hour—significantly higher than the District’s $8.25 minimum wage.
Mayor Vincent C. Gray wrote in an announcement that the bill was a “job kill” and “not a true living-wage bill, because it would raise the minimum wage only for a small fraction of the District’s workforce,” the Washington Post reports.