SeaTac $15/Hr Minimum Wage Before Court
 

Judge to rule on SeaTac minimum-wage law | Local News | The Seattle Times

The initiative raises the city’s hourly-wage floor for hospitality and transportation workers to $15 from the statewide standard of $9.32 on Jan. 1 and assures annual inflation adjustments.

Steve Coll: Raising the Minimum Wage : The New Yorker

According to a Gallup poll taken earlier this year, a majority of Republicans favor a minimum wage of nine dollars. That reflects a truth beyond ideology: life on fifteen thousand a year is barely plausible anymore, even in the low-cost rural areas of the Deep South and the Midwest.

. . .

For decades, business owners have resisted higher minimum wages by arguing that they destroy jobs, particularly for young people. At some theoretical level, high minimum wages will distort job creation, but the best empirical evidence from the past decade is aligned with common sense: a minimum wage drawn somewhat above the poverty line helps those who work full time to live decently, without having a significant impact on other job seekers or on total employment. (For example, a study of pairs of neighboring counties with differing minimum pay found that higher wages had no adverse effect on restaurant jobs.)

I actually support a higher min wage, but this is a horrible law...
(1) why discriminate against industries other than transport and hospitality? Is a plumber or electrician really worth less than a bus mechanic?
(2) forcing promotion of part-time workers to full-time before hiring more will actually reduce openings. Also, some people actually WANT to be part-time or 3/4 time especially if they have children to go home to.
(3) a 50% rise within a month is huge
(4) best to do this statewide rather than applying it to a specific small town containing an airport facility.

Misguided "liberal" fools.

Does this mean WallyWorld will be closing their Sea-Tac stores?

SeaTac in this case doesn't mean Seattle and Tacoma. It means SeaTac, WA, which is a small city surrounding the Seattle airport itself -- not sure if it even contains a Mall*Wart.

Cost more to live than most jobs pay. This increase is still behind the curve. Depends on people who have other means of support, subsidy. Points out once again how "free market" is BS.

It's good in principle, but should be phased in gradually, plus it's discriminatory to include certain workers, but not others.

Not everyone is worth that kind of money.

How is flipping burgers or stocking shelves worth that much, when farm hands who actually work get much less?

Do it for the children.

Forward.

The argument should be that farm hands should get as much or more.

If everyone got paid $15 an hour, than $15 would be the new bottom rung.

SeaTac is one of those cities I would not want to live in, and has a very high per capita prostitution population!

and that would be bad for the persons getting $15/hr instead of $7.25 because . . . .

Prices will inflate to match the new wages, if the low-end isn't automated out or paid under the table.

How so, are prices for goods pegged to the federal minimum wage? That would be an interesting theory, which would make sense if people at or below the poverty threshold were the consumer's which drove pricing. Under you theory, if the minimum wage advances, then the "Dollar Menu" would be come the "Five Dollar Menu?"

The cost of goods sold rises and more money chases the same stuff.

Its no different than say everyone in the US was given $1m. All of a sudden $1m would be the new poor and the costs of goods would skyrocket with all that money chasing them, ie inflation, something like a $150k C300.

If retailers with razor thin margins already are forced to increase their labor costs they will have to pass that onto the consumer, or reduce labor costs.

IE you might walk into a McDonalds and their would be no one to take your order, you simple order on a tablet, pay with CC like at WaWa's. Several $15 an hour cashier jobs gone.

We already played this game with the auto industry and manufacturing industry, and it didn't work so well. You can't legislate success and equality.