LOS ANGELES — Voters will decide in November whether California should raise its hourly minimum wage to $18 by 2026 and pay workers what would be the highest statewide minimum wage in the country.

That would be on par with Hawaii, where a law passed two years ago put workers on track to get paid at least $18 an hour by 2028.

Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee do not have a minimum wage, although they are subject to the federal hourly minimum wage of $7.25.

California’s ballot measure, Proposition 32, would raise the state’s $16 minimum wage to $17 for the remainder of 2024 for companies with at least 26 employees, increasing to $18 starting in January 2025. Without it, the state’s minimum wage is set to increase to $16.50 an hour next year.

Small businesses with fewer than 26 employees would be required to start paying employees $17 an hour in January 2025 and $18 an hour in 2026.

Proponents of the measure say it will help low-wage workers to support their families in one of the most expensive states to live in. Joe Sanberg, a wealthy investor and anti-poverty advocate, said the increase would give a raise of $3,000 a year to more than 2 million Californians earning minimum wage. He called the current situation happening in California “corporate welfare” because minimum-wage workers who work full time don’t make enough to survive without government help.

“If someone who’s working full time needs food stamps, doesn’t that mean that we as taxpayers are subsidizing the difference between what their employer should be paying them so that they could afford food and what they actually are paying them?” Sanberg said.

Opponents of the measure say it would be hard for businesses to implement, particularly small employers with thin profit margins. They say the cost would be passed onto consumers and could lead to job cuts.

“This increase, and the significance of how quickly it’s going to increase will really have a huge impact on them and their ability to maintain their business operations,” said Jennifer Barrera, president of the California Chamber of Commerce.

Nearly 40 California cities — including San Francisco, Berkeley and Emeryville — already have local minimum wages higher than the state’s. Since July, workers in Los Angeles have been paid an hourly minimum of $17.28.

West Hollywood has an hourly minimum wage of $19.08, but business owners there aren’t happy either. In a survey of 142 businesses commissioned by the City Council, 42% said they had to lay off employees or reduce their hours because of the ordinance.

Fast-food workers across the state received a bump to $20 an hour in April under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The Democrat also approved legislation gradually raising wages for health care workers to $25 an hour by July 2026.

Fast-food prices increased 3.7% after the law took effect while employment stayed relatively stable, according to a working paper from the University of California, Berkeley. But franchises in Southern California reported having to cut hours for workers as a result of the wage increase.

University of Pennsylvania professor Ioana Marinescu, who studies the labor market and wage determination, said increasing the minimum wage has not shown to have any net effect on the overall employment rate.

Another common argument against raising the minimum wage is that those low-paying jobs are often filled by students or younger workers.

But a report from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office found roughly half of low-wage workers were older than 35 and more than a quarter were over 50. The state’s largest low-wage occupation is home health and personal care aides, and more than half of low-wage workers are Latino.