Seattle Approves $15/Hour Min Wage

Mom, dad, grandpa, grandma, a couple of aunts ot uncles and a gaggle of kids...happens all the time. If they are short they hire a couple of real employees, friends of the family. I would guess that in olympia only about half the restaurants ever hire off the streets. Yes they are the bigger places but still....here people open restaurants just for the jobs. I know one guy with a place he has had for 7 years, never made a profit, but all of the family who wants a job has a job. SCORE!

I agree, although I feel sorry for the folks who are dead set against it, since they didn't ask to part of the experiment, but, if they haven't figured it out by now, this will tell them about the politics of their City Council and the majority of their neighbors who elected them.

I predict it will be a failure, but am very interested in seeing how it plays out. If I'm wrong and it doesn't cause more problems than it solves then I will have to modify my opinion of this policy.

Another thing is that we are beginning to see the city verses the state battle becoming routine, like Chicago/Illinois has long been. I think that Olympia will not hesitate to jump in if this starts to cost the state funds a lot. Seattle has veen allowed some rope, but it is limited.

I agree that small mom and pop businesses should have much longer transition periods regarding significant increases in minimum wage, because that may prove to be too much of a burden on small mom and pop business. But, as far as large corporations are concern, with their RECORD BREAKING PROFITS, they can clearly afford to pay a LIVING wage. Yes, I agree with you that minimum wage jobs by big corporations such as McD's, retail, etc. have been filled by teens and first time employees. The problem is that in recent years that is becoming less so than previous years. More and more adults, out of desperation, some with families, are now filling these jobs.

Agreed.

It's one thing for the Seattle City Council to impose the consequences of its policy on the citizens of Seattle who did not vote for them, it's quite another to impose them on Washingtonians who didn't even have a say in their election.

If the policy works and Seattle's economy either booms or is unaffected while it's citizens all feel better about life in general and their city in particular, the rest of the State is then free to follow its lead.

Returning to those who may suffer the consequences of a policy which they never supported; created by officials for whom they never voted, it kind of sucks to be them.

People tend to worry about the rights of the minority only when they disagree with the opinion of the majority. I doubt all the big fans of this policy have given much thought to those who don't want it, and if they did, most would assume they were cold-hearted bastards who wanted to keep all wealth to themselves.

However this is the way it goes and, in the main, should go. I hope it doesn't get bogged down in endless court challenges. If you don't like the way your city or state is run, try and change it and if you can't, move somewhere where it is more to your liking. It's helpful, in this regard, to remain current on what is going on in your locale and where it likely to go in the future.

This is why federalism with most of the power decentralized is so important. While moving to another city or state is not a simple matter it is manageable and need not be an overwhelming sacrifice. Moving to another country is another matter altogether.

I never said that unskilled workers should make more money than skilled workers. I am in total agreement with you regarding skilled workers verses unskilled workers. In fact $15/hour may prove to be too much. I don't know. Only time will tell. I simply believe that anyone working 40 hours per week should be paid enough to rent a CHEAP apartment, keep nutritious food on the table, keep clothes on your back, keep the lights and water on, and provide medical care for themselves and their family. Nothing extravagant. No one should have to get a second job just to maintain the basic low standard of living. Look back over the last 30 to 40 years. When the bottom of the workforce (ie, minimum wage) goes up, the entire workforce income goes up like a domino affect. So, when you raise the minimum wage of unskilled workers, indirectly that will cause skilled workers wages who were already making more than minimum wage to go higher. In a sense, no matter how much you increased the unskilled minimum wage, their wage will never catch up with a skilled higher wage, because their wage will also go up. In part, that describes how inflation works.

I fail to see.how getting more time to adjust to rates that dont work for the mom and pop helps much. Boil a frog slowly. Boil a frog fast. The result is still a boiled frog, and taking longer to get there than needed is considered to be cruelty.

We just had a running fight over seattle mass transit, the city wants more than the state supplies, they tried a tax increase referendum for king county which failed, olympia refused to help, so now they are going to take it out of seattle property owners. Then there is the matter of the viaduct, it needs to go but the city demanded a tunnel that costs a ton more than a new viaduct. The state said fine but you pay the extra costs.

This is a city with caviar tastes. It is pretty clear that they are trying to get around not having a wallet that can pay for it.

99 times out of 100 this ends in a crash and burn. Maybe Seattle is different.

Did you see what is going to replace minimum wage earners?

The cost of living (also known as inflation) will always go up. Is it wrong to make sure that the minimum wage at least stays in line with inflation? That way no matter how far below the poverty line you may be, you can still maintain that below the poverty line standard of living. Otherwise over the years of increase cost of living (also known as inflation) families will sink further below the poverty line than where they already are. Based on your theory mom and pop business should be able to pay their workers $8 per hour 50 years from now in order to stay in business. I don't know what the cost of living/inflation will be 50 years from now. But, I think it would be safe to say that if the minimum wage stays exactly where it is today 50 years from now not taking inflation into account would result in millions of new homeless families across the country. Who knows, 50 years from now a cheap apartment in the ghetto might be $5000 per month. Maybe a loaf of bread might be $20. Maybe a gallon of milk might be $30. That's call inflation. What did a loaf of bread cost in 1940, 1950, 1960. What do you think rent was in 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, etc.

America is a rapidly failing superpower, with most of its internal systems failing, standards of living should be going down. Pegging wages to inflation rather than value of the work will serve no purpose other than speed the collapse rate.

A bigger problem is that the law is now the tool that is used on nearly every problem. It is the correct tool about 10% of the time. we might wise up eventually, but i dont expect to live to see it.

I am tired of people saying that minimum wage can't support a family... It's not supposed to.

It will be interesting to see what happens in Seattle. Maybe it will be a tremendous success. People making more money spend more money... I am guessing a stunning failure, but we will have to wait and see.

An increase in the minimum wage to $15 far outstrips the average annual rate of inflation over the last 10 years. Inflation was bout 2% in 2013.

The current Minimum Wage in Washington is $9.32, the highest in the nation. Beginning in 2001 the rate has been adjusted annually for inflation.

So the highest minimum wage rate in the country; that is already adjusted annual for inflation, will increase by 61% in three years, and reach a level that is the highest in the world.

Seattle's policy is not intended to account for inflation. That was accomplished in 2001. It is an effort to address income inequality while delivering a favor to Unions.

I doubt it, but we will see.

I wasn't planning on moving to Seattle anytime soon anyway. It rains far too much.

There are minimum wage workers out there who come to work everyday giving a 110 percent everyday. Never calling in sick and never complaining. There are minimum wage workers who productivity and quality of work is above and beyond the call of duty. Some of these workers are the hardest workers you will ever come across. You made a comment regarding the value of the work. I believe I just summed up the definition of work value. Too bad being a hard working dedicated extremely productive worker isn't worth making a bare minimum living surviving wage. Your reward is you better get a second job while the big corporation continue making RECORD BREAKING PROFIT off of your sweat and tears.

The $15/hour may prove to be too high. I don't know. Only time will tell. I never said that $15/hour was a good thing or a bad thing. I don't have a magic number. I just believe whatever number lawmakers come up with should be bare minimum for someone to take care of their family basic needs. No more no less. What that amount should be can be debated. In your reply you stated that in 2001 Seattle started annually to calculate the rate of inflation to the minimum wage. I do think tying the rate of inflation to the minimum wage is the right thing to do

And prices of products and services go up like a domino affect. Overall real income then will remain the same.

And these workers are typcially rewarded with higher salaries via raises and/or promotions and bonuses. If they are not, thensuch a strong worker is likely to be hired by another company with the incentive of giving them more money.

Good strong workers as you describe typically get rewarded in this way. It is smart business as this one worker will do more work and better quality results earning a business more money and costing them less. It is cheaper in the long run to reward such an employee than to lose them and have to re-hire/re-train someone.

That employee you describe will not be making minimum wage for long. Your assumption that his salary will stay at miniumum wage forever unless minimum wage increases is a wrong assumption.

Even when I was a teen working my first time, I received an increase after working there so long and showing positive or even average performance. Normal work policy does this as it is more expensive to re-hire than maintain an experience employee.

I ran across an interesting stat that only 1/3 of seattle residents who work make less than $15/hour. I dont know if this includes people who end up making more because of tips and this does not necessarily mean that this percent of jobs pay that. When I lived in Monterey ca a huge portion of restaurant workers there and in Carmel lived in Salinas and commuted, as they could not afford to live on the peninsula. One of the biggest arguments for $15 is that seattle is so expensive a place to live, but I notice those selling this Plan never proved that these lowly paid ($10ish) fast food workers actually live in the city.

If Olympia goes to $15 I am going to add a 20% gratuity to every check and call it a day, my people already make $15 with tips incuded.