• Opportunity Washington has a good blog post on Seattle’s fast-growing high-end incomes, which have “fueled the urban momentum for minimum wage hikes.” It concludes: “Expanding opportunity – including the opportunity to advance beyond minimum wage employment – should continue to be policymakers’ highest priority.”

• There was a bit of a kerfuffle this week in the press about whether Seattle restaurants are closing because of the impending increase in the city’s minimum wage. (See here, here, and here, for example.) As we note in our recent report on the minimum wage, some of the costs of increases in the minimum are passed on to consumers via higher prices or fewer consumption choices. While it may be that many Seattle restaurants remain open (or they close for other reasons than higher labor costs), an article in the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog shows that the minimum wage increase is still not a free lunch:

The “$15 minimum wage” — really, $10 an hour at businesses employing fewer than 500 people and providing healthcare or tips starting April 1st — doesn’t seem to be stopping him.

“Prices will increase, but I’m full steam ahead,” [restauranteur Josh] Henderson said. Indeed.

(Emphasis added.)

• Additionally, the Good Fruit Grower has a story on a wage case that is currently before the Washington Supreme Court:

At issue is whether employers who pay workers piece-rate wages owe them additional pay for rest breaks. . . .

[Attorney Kristin] Ferrera said the reason growers haven’t been paying for rest breaks is because a reasonable reading of the regulations indicates they didn’t need to.

However, should the court rule in favor of the workers, agricultural employers could be faced with paying their workers for breaks retroactively, as there’s a three-year statute of limitations for such claims.

“It’s possible we could be looking at three years of back wage claims, double damages, and attorneys’ fees,” she said. “It could be millions of dollars. This could be very damaging to growers.”