The Long Beach City Council early Wednesday voted on raising the minimum wage to $13 an hour and created a pathway to $15 an hour. The 6-2 vote followed two hours of testimony from workers and community members and another hour of debate by council members.

The vote raises the minimum wage incrementally to $13 an hour by 2019. After that, a study on whether the higher minimum wage helped or hurt the economy will help determine whether the wage should be raised to $15 after that.

Nonprofits and small businesses with 25 employees or less can delay the increase for one year.

Other cities and Los Angeles County recently voted to incrementally raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour. Long Beach’s increase of a lesser amount was seen as a compromise, since business groups have said the increases will hurt employment and cause businesses to suffer.