More details on Seattle's proposed $15 minimum wage
The Puget Sound Business Journal has a good overview. As the PSBJ reports, it’s complicated. Under the mayor’s proposal, which the City Council has to approve, businesses with fewer than 500 employees would have up to seven years to reach $15 an hour. But counting what is called “temporary compensation responsibility,” these small businesses would […]
30th of April 2014
Minimum wage, maximum hassle. Uncompromising activists threaten to take $15 to November ballot.
My column today’s looks at the ongoing wrangling in Seattle City Hall over how to get to a $15 minimum wage. What Seattle does matters statewide. So far, no one has devised a containment strategy to prevent Seattle politics from spreading. It’s not Vegas. What happens in Seattle doesn’t stay in Seattle. …Here’s what’s clear: […]
25th of April 2014
No recommendation from Seattle mayor on how to get to $15 minimum wage. Yet.
Yesterday’s press conference (video) had Seattle Mayor Ed Murray explaining why he was not announcing his proposal for a $15 minimum wage. Here’s how Publicola characterized it. At a press briefing this afternoon—the official press release read, “Mayor Murray to announce his proposal for raising the minimum wage in Seattle”—Mayor Ed Murray did not announce […]
17th of April 2014
Looking beyond employment effects of higher minimum wage: loss of non-monetary benefits, increased workload, heavier payroll taxes
Mark Perry, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, effectively counters claims that a higher minimum wage has minimal impacts on employment. I’ve argued before on CD that saying (or finding empirically) that minimum wage increases have no or very small effects on employment levels is not the same as saying that minimum wage increases have no negative effects on low-skilled and unskilled […]
14th of April 2014
Employment policy links
$15 Now files ballot initiative to raise Seattle’s minimum wage: Activists this morning filed a Seattle city charter amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour starting Jan. 1, 2015. The measure calls for a three-year phase-in for small business and non-profit organizations and defines a small business as any with 250 or […]
10th of April 2014
Job loss from minimum wage hikes often less than expected, NCPA explains why. Increase is offset by reducing other compensation.
The National Center for Policy Analysis takes on one of the challenges posed by supporters of an increased minimum wage. Specifically, they answer the question of why job losses often come in lower than opponents predict. It’s a short, compelling research post. The gist: Both proponents and opponents of minimum-wage hikes do not realize that […]
7th of April 2014
NYT looks at Seattle minimum wage, plus some inconvenient facts on possible impacts
The New York Times uses Seattle’s $15 minimum wage initiative (small “I” so far) to highlight efforts across the country to combat income inequality by raising the wage floor. The story by Annie Lowrey leads by citing the travails of a low-wage worker whose hours have been cut back. By now, we’re accustomed to such tales […]
3rd of April 2014
Amid a flurry of minimum wage actions across the country, Seattle's proposed $15 floor stands alone
The New York Times reports on the presidential push for a higher federal minimum wage. While this Congress is unlikely to approve it, the White House claims credit for the emergence of state and local actions to raise the minimum. In the last 14 months, since Mr. Obama first called for the wage increase in […]
28th of March 2014
Complete lack of balance at Mayor Murray's Income Inequality Symposium
Yesterday, Kriss and I attended Seattle mayor Ed Murray’s Income Inequality Symposium at Seattle University. This was no balanced discussion of the potential impacts of increasing the minimum wage in Seattle to $15; instead, everyone involved seemed to have agreed ahead of time on the goodness of significantly increasing the minimum wage. All that’s left […]
Income Inequality Symposium: Trade-offs? What Trade-offs?
(Previous posts on the symposium are here, here, here and here.) At the same time as the panel I discussed in the last post, there was one that was held in another building, in a room with limited seating, titled “Strategies for investing in workers.” This was moderated by Maud Daudon of the Seattle Metropolitan […]