Blog

Confirming what you knew, the minimum wage campaign is all about politics

Union leaders meeting in Houston reiterated the importance of the minimum wage to their 2014 political strategy. (The politics of the issue were explained last December in the New York Times.) Gathered for their annual winter meeting, the nation’s labor leaders say that what they see as the best theme for reviving the union movement […]

Teacher evaluation bill goes down, putting $44 million of school funding at risk

In a session when there’s been a lot of talk about education funding, what with the McCleary decision and an impatient state Supreme Court, a sensible tweak in how the state uses teacher evaluations should have been easy. The Washington Alliance for a Competitive Economy (WashACE) makes clear what’s at stake. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats […]

CBO estimates of job losses caused by minimum wage reflect mainstream economic analysis

Following its estimate of job losses likely to result from lifting the federal minimum wage to $10.10, the Congressional Budget Office is on the receiving end of some none-too-gentle second guessing. For example, from this AP story, Jason Furman, chairman of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, and council member Betsey Stevenson referred in […]

Minimum wage bill passes out of House committee; closing skills gap a better solution

Yesterday, on a 5-4 party line vote, the House Labor and Workforce Development Committee passed HB 2672, which would raise the statewide minimum wage to $12. Committee passage was expected. Whether there are the votes in the full House to increase the wage is somewhat in doubt. And it’s a certainty that the Senate will […]

Washington youth unemployment is much higher than the national average. Think the minimum wage plays a role?

We’ll be releasing a policy brief on this issue next week. But I think this slide that Kriss prepared for today’s meeting of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisers is highly consistent with national studies showing that minimum wage hikes negatively affect teenage unemployment. In 2013, the overall unemployment rate for Washington was 7.0 percent; […]

Map of Earned Income Tax Credit by County

Following up on Dick’s last post, the Brookings Institution website has a cool interactive map with data on the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) by county (click on image): In Washington state, King County has the smallest share of taxpayers taking the EITC (8.4%), while Yakima County has the highest share (22.3%). Brookings’s Ben […]

Why it makes no sense to tie minimum wage increases to gains in productivity

The recent push to raise the minimum wage has seen occasional efforts by proponents to relate the minimum wage to increased productivity. For example, Up to 1968, increases in the minimum wage kept up proportionately with productivity increases. That made sense, as the gains in productivity were in that way equitably shared between employers and […]

House Democrats propose statewide $12 minimum wage

House Democrats held a press conference (video at the link)  today calling for a statewide $12 minimum wage. HB 2672 would take the wage to $12 by 2017. The Seattle Times reports: Under the proposal, the state’s current $9.32 cent-an-hour minimum wage would increase to $10 an hour starting Jan. 1, 2015, and would get another […]

Raising the minimum wage doesn't reduce income inequality – economic growth does

If income inequality is a problem – and there’s no consensus that it is (see here and here) – economic growth is the best way to reduce the disparities. Scott Winship, whose work on this issue has been outstanding, writes at e21: … it is the fragility of the economy that lies behind concerns over […]

Gov's State of the State: Increase minimum wage, boost education spending, fund transportation package

In his State of the State address yesterday, Gov. Inslee introduced themes likely to resonate through the November elections.  Whether they will gain bipartisan  approval in the divided Legislature is less probable. The headlines: a minimum wage increase, $200 million in new education funding (including the oft-suspended teacher COLA) paid for with unspecified tax increases, […]