$15 minimum wage for Seattle OK'd

[Jazzy]

Seattle activists celebrated a successful campaign to gradually increase the city's minimum wage to $15 by calling for a national movement to close the income and opportunity gaps between rich and poor.

The Seattle City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Monday that would give the city the highest minimum wage in the nation.

Socialist City Council Member Kshama Sawant, who after the council meeting called on the people of America to elect more independent and socialist candidates, said the push for a higher minimum wage is spreading across the nation.

"Seattle may be a hippie city. We may wear socks with our sandals," but it's also a city where different progressive groups can work together to bring about change, Sawant said.

Some critics said the plan doesn't go far enough, while others said it would lead to layoffs and higher prices for consumers, reports CBS Seattle affiliate KIRO-TV.

Mayor Ed Murray, who was elected last year, had promised in his campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, as did Sawant in her campaign last year.

"We did it. Workers did this," she said. "We need to continue to build an even more powerful movement."

Council Member Tom Rasmussen said, "Seattle wants to stop the race to the bottom in wages" and address the "widening gap between the rich and the poor."

The International Franchise Association, a Washington, D.C.-based business group that represents franchise owners, said it plans to sue to stop the ordinance.

"The City Council's action today is unfair, discriminatory and a deliberate attempt to achieve a political agenda at the expense of small franchise business owners," the group said in a statement.

Full article

What do you think about the minimum wage raise to $15 an hour?

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Some people need college, trade school, special training, (etc, etc) to find a job earning that amount. Now McDonald's workers will be paid the same. Seems fair.

 

[DrLeftover]

It seems the media, in their zeal to broadcast the higher minimum wage idea neglected to cover something else that made news in Seattle.

October 20, 2011

Right now it's just a draft, but a Seattle City Council resolution intended to show support for the Occupy Seattle protest includes some bold ideas.

A citywide income tax as a way to "reduce the regressive burden of our tax structure." A new rule requiring that the city contract with companies whose executives aren't paid excessively more than their workers. Public financing of elections as a way to reduce corporate influence on city elections.

The resolution is sponsored by Councilmember Nick Licata, long the council's most liberal member, who most recently shepherded mandatory paid-sick-leave legislation into law. The resolution was drafted as the Occupy Seattle protest in Westlake Park over corporate greed and widening income disparity entered its third week.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2016565191_cityincometax21m.html

 

[Evil Eye]

I can think of some advantages and disadvantages to this idea. Before passing judgement, I would like several peer-reviewed economists to work out the details.

So, until that happens I'll just say...
That's a lot of money

 

[WHO IS SERAFIN]

That entire state is just full of insane idiots. Everything they do to supposedly help the little guy does the opposite when companies either go out of business or move out of the state. My wifes sister and her husband are one the hardest working people I know and I just dont understand how they can stay in California with there money being stolen with outrageous high taxes. And then it gets redistributed to illegal aliens and the butt ass lazy.

 

[Darth-Apple]

What I really don't understand is how they are really expecting the youth to enter the work force with a $15/hour minimum wage. No service industry business will hire any "ordinary" employee for that wage unless they have the utmost qualifications for the job, which will make it difficult for those without work experience to get in the system. Some 16 year old with no experience isn't worth $15/hour to the vast majority of service industry businesses out there.