By 2020, as many as 800,000 minimum wage workers in the city of Los Angeles will be earning $15 an hour. The city council on Tuesday evening approved a plan that will raise the current minimum of $9 an hour in increments beginning January 1, 2016. The council voted 14 to one to have the city attorney prepare the ordinance for a final vote next month.

The plan includes an increase to $10 on January 1 and to $10.50 on July 1, 2016. An increase to $12 an hour will occur on July 1, 2017, followed by two annual increases of $1 an hour before reaching $15 in the summer of 2020.

Los Angeles, the country’s second-largest city, joins Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle as major U.S. cities to adopt the $15 an hour minimum wage. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, both New York City and Washington, D.C., are considering taking action to raise the minimum wage in those cities to $15 an hour.

While workers’ groups are pleased — even though some objected to the long timetable — business leaders warn that the pay raises will force employers to lay off workers or leave the city.

Some employers, including nonprofits, with 25 or fewer employees will have an extra year to comply with the new law, and some nonprofits that work with the homeless and former gang members also may take advantage of the extension.

Last year the Los Angeles city council passed a measure to increase the minimum wage for workers at the city’s large hotels to $15.37 an hour beginning July 1, 2015. That ordinance affected between 5,300 and 13,500 workers, though it does not apply to hotels where workers are represented by a union.

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