Seattle is the largest city in the Pacific Northwest, a bustling emerging economy on the cutting-edge. Known for the Space Needle, the Super Bowl XLVIII Champions Seattle Seahawks, and soon a $15 minimum wage.
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The minimum wage in America currently stands at $7.25, a number that is all too familiar to me and the countless others that have worked small retail jobs. While this may have been acceptable for me, at the time a high school student looking for some disposable income, it is not enough to support the millions who use this money to support themselves and sometimes a family. It is not a living wage.
Throughout the country, people have been protesting for this higher “living” wage. Simply put, a living wage is a wage where if you put in the time (40 hour work week), you will be able to support yourself. This seems like a fair proposition. Yet as stands, no single county in the United States can support a person working 40 hours a week at the minimum wage in an average one-bedroom apartment, according to a federal survey used to figure housing vouchers. Even in the poorest, most-broken rural areas, it takes more than the current minimum to make rent on that one-bedroom home. In Seattle, it currently takes an estimated $17.56 an hour to afford that small apartment. However, this number can reach as high as $29.83 an hour in San Mateo County, California, the most costly housing geography in America.
Seattle has been on the forefront of this movement for a living wage, and finally, after a year of activism, they have received what they have been seeking: the elusive $15 minimum wage.
Plan to Implement
However, this will not be an immediate change. It has been deemed a necessary precaution to slowly implement this change. On June 3, 2014, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray signed a billed that will gradually raise Seattle’s minimum wage up to $15 an hour. The gradual move towards $15 will start with a hike to $10 next April for small businesses (<500 employees) and $11 for larger ones. It will take seven years for the small business minimum wage to reach $15, while larger businesses must reach that rate in three years. While some have argued that this is too slow, it is definitely progress.
