It looks like Initiative 1433 — pushed by Raise Up Washington, a union front group — made it to the ballot. So, come November, Washington voters will decide whether or not to raise the statewide minimum wage to $13.50 per hour and require employers to provide up to seven days of paid sick leave per year.
Voters will have a lot to consider, so it should come as no surprise that union front group Raise Up Washington is already touting misinformation in hope of swaying voters its way. Here are three such claims that I-1433 supporters are telling voters:
- What’s the business impact of increasing the minimum wage?
“Employers who already pay above the minimum wage won’t see a difference in labor costs. Past experience tells us those who do pay minimum wage will find ways to manage the increase and remain profitable…”
- Will increasing the minimum wage increase unemployment?
“The short answer is no. Economists have studied this many times and the evidence overwhelmingly shows a minimum wage increase does not reduce the number of jobs available…”
- What’s the economic impact of increasing the minimum wage?
“In a consumer-based economy like ours, one company’s worker is another company’s customer. When workers have more money to spend, businesses have to hire more employees to keep up with increased demand. People earning the minimum wage right now have to spend too much of what they earn on basic expenses like rent and groceries, so the increased wages will help stimulate economic growth.”
Now, here’s the reality:
- What’s the business impact of increasing the minimum wage?
Small businesses across the state have responded to I-1433 by expressing concern over how many employees they could afford to retain. Simply put, it’s a job-killing measure. Many businesses owners are predicting that they would be forced to scale back the number of employees or reduce employee work hours should the initiative pass.
But, it’s not just small businesses that may react to an increase in the minimum wage with job cuts and/or hour cuts. Starbucks cut work hours/shifts from full-time to part-time workers in California due to the statewide $15 minimum wage.
- Will increasing the minimum wage increase unemployment?
Yes, for certain segments of the work force. University of Washington Professor Jacob Vigdor recently pointed out that Seattle’s $15 minimum wage places young, inexperienced and unskilled workers in “a tough position.” The reasoning makes sense: If businesses are going to pay employees as much as $15 per hour, they aren’t “taking a chance on a teenager, they are looking for a more experienced worker to fill that job.”
“Low paying jobs are the often first step up the ladder and by imposing a minimum wage, we’re basically saying we want people to be higher up the ladder and the way we’re going to do that is we’re going take away the bottom rung. Some people are going to be able to climb all the way up to that second rung, but there are certain workers for whom if they don’t have a first rung they’re not going to have a job.”
- What’s the economic impact of increasing the minimum wage?
Again, University of Washington Professor Jacob Vigdor recently pointed out that, while the impacts of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage must be measured using a variety of factors, it is not true that prices have not increased (as proponents of wage hikes like to claim). It may be true that grocery, retail and rent prices increased by just a couple of percentage points. However, prices in the food service industry have increased significantly — an average of 9% higher than just a year ago.
Advocates of the $15 minimum wage made a lot of promises when they pushed for the wage jump in Seattle. They painted a rosy picture in which workers would see a jump in their paychecks while assuring that no one would lose their jobs and hiring practices would remain healthy.
That didn’t happen.
Unfortunately, the failures have not kept them from making the same promises for I-1433.
