© 2025 Connecticut Public

FCC Public Inspection Files:
WEDH · WEDN · WEDW · WEDY
WEDW-FM · WNPR · WPKT · WRLI-FM
Public Files Contact · ATSC 3.0 FAQ
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

A Mall With Two Minimum Wages

Wetzel's Pretzels employee Emperatriz Orozco hands out free samples at the Westfield Valley Fair Mall.
Steve Henn
/
NPR
Wetzel's Pretzels employee Emperatriz Orozco hands out free samples at the Westfield Valley Fair Mall.

The Westfield Valley Fair Mall straddles two cities. One side of the mall is in Santa Clara, but walk a few feet down the mall, and you're in San Jose. In 2012, San Jose voters agreed to raise the city's minimum wage from $8 to $10 an hour.

Philip Sandigo manages a shoe store on the $8-an-hour side. When San Jose raised the minimum wage, he lost about half his staff.

The boundary line between the city of San Jose and the city of Santa Clara runs through the Westfield Valley Fair Mall.
Steve Henn / NPR
/
NPR
The boundary line between the city of San Jose and the city of Santa Clara runs through the Westfield Valley Fair Mall.

They went to the stores on the side of the mall that paid $2 an hour more.

Sandigo asked the owners of the shoe store if he could raise wages, but they said no. Almost two years later, it's still a struggle to hire new employees.

"We get the bottom of the barrel here," Sandigo says. "Not really focused. ... One guy came in high the other day."

On the $10-an-hour side of the mall, stores like Wetzel's Pretzels have different problems. Suddenly, the shop had to pay the lowest-wage workers more — 25 percent more. That was great for the employees, but a challenge for the owner, Yvonne Ryzak.

Ryzak had a few options. One was to sell more pretzels. She did the math and it came out to selling 250 or 300 more every two weeks. But she didn't start selling more pretzels just because the minimum wage went up in San Jose.

Another way to deal with the wage hike was to cut staff. But Ryzak figured that would lead to long lines and lost sales.

She could also raise her prices. But the other pretzel shop on the lower-wage side of the mall made that difficult.

In the end, Ryzak raised her prices a little bit and made up the rest by cutting into her profits.

Ryzak says she's fine with raising the minimum wage. She just wishes it was the same everywhere — across the mall, California, and the entire country.

Since 2012, the minimum wage rates in the mall have changed again: Santa Clara's minimum wage is now $9 an hour; San Jose's, $10.15.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Steve Henn is NPR's technology correspondent based in Menlo Park, California, who is currently on assignment with Planet Money. An award winning journalist, he now covers the intersection of technology and modern life - exploring how digital innovations are changing the way we interact with people we love, the institutions we depend on and the world around us. In 2012 he came frighteningly close to crashing one of the first Tesla sedans ever made. He has taken a ride in a self-driving car, and flown a drone around Stanford's campus with a legal expert on privacy and robotics.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT is an initiative from Connecticut Public, the state’s local NPR and PBS station, to elevate Latino stories and expand programming that uplifts and informs our Latino communities. Visit CTPublic.org/latino for more stories and resources. For updates, sign up for the SOMOS CONNECTICUT newsletter at ctpublic.org/newsletters.

SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.

Related Content
Connecticut Public’s journalism is made possible, in part by funding from Jeffrey Hoffman and Robert Jaeger.