Minimum Wage | Press

Take a Stand: Minimum wage is too low

04.27.2008 | Lawrence Journal-World and News | The April 1 Journal-World carried a column by Kansas University business professor Mark Hirschey called “Inconvenient truth about minimum wage.” Since it was April Fools’ Day and the article gave many anecdotes but few “facts,” we’re not certain it was altogether serious. In case it was, we’re responding with some facts of our own. | Read

Tough Wage Enforcement Law Approved in Iowa Senate; Anti-Immigrant Measures Rejected

04.17.2008 | The Iowa Senate on Tuesday approved SF 2416, a bill to sharply increase fines on employers violating Iowa state wage laws, crack down on the practice of misclassifying employees as "independent contractors" to evade those laws, and protect workers reporting violations from retaliation. The Iowa Senate approach contrasts sharply with the punitive approach against immigrants embodied in a competing proposal approved by the Iowa House this week which would create new state ID requirements for new hires and "employee theft" provisions that would criminalize many immigrant workers. | Read

Fair wage engenders basic human dignity

04.10.2008 | The Tennesean | The United States first introduced minimum-wage legislation in the midst of the Great Depression. Recognizing the failures of unregulated markets, the nation chose to draw a moral line below which no market economy could fall; desperate people should not be required to work at desperation wages. Citizen-emboldened politicians understood taking advantage of people's economic vulnerability was morally unconscionable, even amid economic turmoil. | Read

What if there are no jobs or little pay?

02.23.2008 | Muskegon Chronicle | A very pregnant Brittanie Melton walked into a Muskegon food pantry on a snowy February day and, for the first time in her life, asked for a handout. Before you label the 25-year-old mother of two a failure or free-loader, know this: Melton has a job. She works 30 hours per week as a medical receptionist in a doctor's office, a job with no health insurance. | Read

Minimum Wage Increase: Much Ado About Nothing for Most Small Business Owners According to SurePayroll Survey

02.17.2008 | Small business owners are not losing much sleep about an increase in the national minimum wage, according to a recent survey by national payroll service provider SurePayroll. According to the SurePayroll survey, the majority of small businesses (51 percent) don't even know what the minimum wage is in their state. | Read

Throwing minimum-wage 'experts' for a loss

02.13.2008| Philadelphia Daily News | When the clock expired at the end of the Super Bowl, a lot of so-called experts turned out to be wrong. The game is played on the field, and that often has a funny way of defying ill-placed prediction. Overshadowed perhaps by football, but even more important to millions of Pennsylvanians, was the January debunking of forecasts by experts even more certain than football commentators. | Read

Minimum wage: Washington's $8.07/hour will be highest in U.S.

12.29.2007 | Associated Press | Jessica Barragan recently took a minimum wage job at Wendy's to help make ends meet. The single mother already works one job at the Burger Ranch in Yakima, but needed more money to provide for her three young sons. "It's hard to support them on minimum wage," she said. "It would be nice just to have help with the extras." | Read

WSU study shows minimum wage hike does little to harm economy

11.15.2007 | Associated Press |  The state's law calling for an automatic review of the minimum wage each year does little to harm business and benefits the vast majority of low-paid workers, a new study by Washington State University says. | Read

A fair minimum wage stokes economic growth

10.17.2007 | Everett Herald | One good thing about our state's minimum wage announcement is that it wasn't accompanied by the typical "woe-is-me" rhetoric from businesses about how this increase of 1.8 percent is going to wipe them out. Perhaps that's because with the best minimum wage in the country, employers are seeing less worker turnover. That means lower costs for recruitment and training, and more productivity from workers who stay on the job and are committed to their work. "You get what you pay for" makes as much common sense when paying wages as it does when shopping for office furniture. | Read

For $7.93 an hour, it’s worth a trip across a state line

01.11.2007 | New York Times | Nearly a decade ago, when voters in Washington approved a measure that would give the state’s lowest-paid workers a raise nearly every year, many business leaders predicted that small towns on this side of the state line would suffer. But instead of shriveling up, small-business owners in Washington say they have prospered far beyond their expectations. In fact, as a significant increase in the national minimum wage heads toward law, businesses here at the dividing line between two economies — a real-life laboratory for the debate — have found that raising prices to compensate for higher wages does not necessarily lead to losses in jobs and profits. | Read

A realistic minimum wage helps the overall economy

12.27.2006 | Everett Herald | It's a good thing the voters approved a COLA for the minimum wage in our state, because the federal minimum wage has been languishing for almost a decade at $5.15 an hour. That's $893 a month for a full-time job. It's a wage that generates poverty and hopelessness. That's not what we should be getting from work. | Read

Minimum wage hikes aid state economic gains

03.08.2006 | Tacoma News Tribune, Everett Herald | It finally looks like our state’s economy has built up some good, job-producing momentum. Let’s cheer the numbers – and consider why they are so positive. Part of the credit must go to the state minimum wage, which is indexed to inflation. | Read (Tribune)| Read (Herald)

Washington voters know how to take care of their own

10.19.2005 | Tacoma News Tribune | One of the best ways to eradicate poverty is to increase the minimum wage, that is, pay people a little more. That’s the conclusion that Washington voters arrived at seven years ago, when they overwhelmingly passed the minimum wage initiative by a 2-to-1 margin. For the first time in our country, the minimum wage was tied to inflation. So on Jan. 1, when the minimum wage will be $7.63 an hour, Washington citizens can take pride in the fact that we have the best minimum wage in the country. | Read

Still Working Well - Report Challenges Critics' Claims On State Minimum Wage

01.27.2004 | EOI | Job growth trends do not support claims that Washington State's relatively high minimum wage is a cause of the state's high unemployment rate, according to a report released this month by the Economic Opportunity Institute (EOI), a non-profit public policy institute. | Read

State minimum wage climbs to $7.01

01.01.2003 | Seattle Post-Intelligencer | Washington workers have reason to celebrate the new year: The minimum wage increases to $7.01 today, and a new law expanding employees' rights to take family leave goes into effect. Read