Washington's minimum wage is scheduled to go from $8.07 to $8.55 per hour next January. Meanwhile, Barack Obama says if he is elected President, the minimum wage will go up to be a living wage. He wants to raise the federal minimum wage, which is set to go from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour on January 1, to $9.50 by 2011. Taking a page from Washington State, Obama wants to tie future increases to an inflationary index so there would be annual adjustments in the federal minimum wage as well.
According to census data, less than one percent of workers over 25 are earning the minimum and rather than family heads or full-time workers, they tend to be young single adults, teenagers living at home, or spouses providing a second income.
Today, politicians are blending minimum wage into a living wage. That may prove to be counterproductive and actually decrease job opportunities during these economic times especially. While everyone wants to be paid more, the question which needs to be answered: "Is continually increasing the minimum wage actually reducing jobs?"
On the 10th anniversary of the passage of I-688, Washington's minimum wage law which tied automatic wage hikes to an urban inflation index, the Governor and lawmakers ought to take a second look at what may be some unintended consequences of the state's statute. Certainly, the job market in Seattle is different than that in Clarkston, yet Washington law sets the adjustment based on wages in the urbanized Puget Sound population centers makes no accommodation for rural areas on both sides of the Cascades.
Maybe the answer would be a job paying $8 an hour for someone entering the workforce or looking to supplement family income is better than no job at all.
Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)
