If people make more they have less need of food banks and there are less homeless - which is the point if a $15/hour minimum wage, duh!

I just had an amazing idea. You ready for this?

No legal minimum wage limits but every business has to publicly post the minimum wage they pay their workers.

You say: "It is so telling of our society that we value our cars more than our children."

But more accurately you should say: ""It is so telling of our society that we value our cars more than someone else's children."

After all, we are paying for the parking lot attendant to look after our car versus paying taxes/giving to charity to look after someone else's children.

Should we sacrifice the things we don't really need and give that "surplus" to a parent who should probably not have had children in the first place?

There's certainly an argument to say that we should, but there something not quite right about it.

@1, you're a fucking idiot. You know that, right? I know you know that's true.

I brought this up a while back and got some pretty heated pushback from people who don't know what they're talking about. The problem is that so much of today's non-profit funds come from grants and contracts, which can't be altered in midstream. So, if you all of a sudden have to pay caseworkers more, there is no source of money to do that, and you have no alternative but to lay people off. Like, immediately, today. Because you can't make payroll.

Some of these grants and contracts run for several years, so adjusting them is difficult. Raising individual donations is always problematic; every non-profit in the country is milking that teat as hard as they possibly can already. Will more donations come in? Possibly. Will they make up the difference? Not a chance in hell.

It is also important to understand that the way the programs work isn't, "oh, we'll just cut back a little, we can lay off one caseworker and we'll be back on budget". The grants and contracts have very minutely stipulated service levels that must be met (these service levels are minutely audited every year, too.) If instead of serving X people, you start serving X-10%, your whole contract is in jeopardy and could be cancelled. Boom: no program at all. NOBODY served.

The argument that we'll just serve slightly fewer people, but that's OK because the demand for services will be lower is completely wrong, for the simple reason that the demand for services is many times the amount of services that are being provided now. The demand for services could be cut in half and people would still be lined up out the door.

I think a lot of people are confused about the realities of providing social services -- who needs it, who gets it, who provides it, how much it costs. It's easy to wave your hands and say "the market will take care of it". It may work that way eventually but in the short term there is a serious potential for massive, massive harm, important agencies going out of business, etc.

Again: I'm not saying it's a bad idea. I support a higher minimum. I'm just saying that it has to be done carefully.

@3:

Anyone who truly desires to opt-out of the social contract (e.g. those citizens whose elementary education was in large part subsidized by the taxes of those who came before, regardless of who their actual parents were), they are always free to pack up stakes and move to some Libertarian Paradise such as the wilds of rural Montana or Alaska and try their hand at living a life of complete freedom, unemcumbered by the dragging anchor of other people's need or want - or support.

I mean, who could possibly deny that those hardy, pioneering folk you see every week on "Alaskan Homesteaders" are living the veritable Life Of Reilly?

@2,

Still not enough. The bare minimum for their lowest paid worker; the median for all their workers; and the highest salary/profit takings at the company (i.e. what the owner or CEO makes). Let us all see how a company's wealth gets distributed.

Wait. Is supporting this good for me, optics-wise? I know it was, but as the weeks go by and the economic conjecturing gets increasingly dense I'm having a hard time knowing which side of history I should be on. You know, for my rapidly-shriveling re-election dreams. LOOK INTO MY SOUL AND TELL ME.

@4,

I'm sorry, but I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that caseworkers make less than $15/hour.

The reason I think this is a FUD argument is that many other places have raised the minimum wage before. Why aren't these non-profit concern trolls showing us what terrible things happened to non-profits all those other times the minimum wage went up?

All these calls for "caution! caution!" make it sound like a trip to Mars. Or digging a freaking 60' tunnel. Some brave new venture we've never done before! Woooo! Watch out! Nobody knows what the u n i n t e n d e d consequences could be!

Zzzzzzzzzz. We've done this before. Instead of scary hypotheticals, argue from history. The history exists -- the problem is that the facts don't justify the fear.

I can't wait for the Sawant people to capitulate to the bourgeois non profits out of political expediency. Or, I can't wait until the Sawant people refuse to alter their position, go down in flames, and then take credit for the eventual outcome. She is already sucking up to SAGE and Working Washington, so we'll see who the Sawant people throw under the bus.

And now Fnarf will get really, really, really angry and call me names. Childish.

@11

I can see why you'd wish this was all merely about Kshama Sawant. If only it were that easy to dismiss.

Thanks for posting Goldy.

For the people thinking raising the minimum wage will decrease the demand on the social services signed on to this report - know that most of these non-profits are providing services for the non-working poor. They won't be getting raises.

And what Fnarf said.

The reason it's important is because the proposal on the table is $15 immediately. We could fix this by either exempting social services, or phasing them in over, say 8 years. This would allow their funding to catch up.

I agree with Fnarf. Let's raise the minimum wage. But let's do it wisely and account for the unintended consequences.

@13: Sawant is leading the charge to go to $15 immediately, across the board, and figure out the damage later. You seem to be of the same mind, and anyone who simply wants to be a bit more thoughtful gets an earful of your simplistic sarcasm.

"Let's wait 8 years until MSW's can make $30k/year."

How about we listen to what millionaire alcohol salesmen think we should do about social workers getting paid poverty wages, and do the exact opposite every time?

Speaking of that, a bar excise tax sounds like a fantastic way to pay for social worker salaries.

I realize that we all approach these issues, polls & data through our own lenses and that Goldy has been very clear about his approach in writing about the issue. My takeaway from the study was a bit different. What I saw was some hard data from nonprofits about what programs & staff that serve a vulnerable population may have to be cut. Obviously these social service organizations have social justice at the heart of their mission, certainly they support raising the minimum wage. There's real anxiety amongst these human services folk about how this will affect the work that thy do.

Point being -through my lens- that if we do this wrong we could end up harming folks & organization. It's going to take a really vigorous discussion to figure out how to make this work and that's going to mean all sides being willing to have difficult discussions. Acknowledge that this will not be easy but it is important. And drop the evil corporate monster/hateful socialist agenda rhetoric. It helps no one.

The Publicola story lays out the numbers...

http://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-profi…

@12, the one who always goes straight to name-calling and sneering contempt is you (Will in Seattle excepted, but come on).

I didn't say anything about "unintended consequences", and I laid out the facts pretty clearly. I'm not talking about hypotheticals; I'm talking about reality. I'm in the biz, I know what I'm talking about. I've seen the budgets; I know where the money comes from and where it goes. There's a reason why what I'm saying mirrors what the Human Services Coalition is saying, while what you are saying is mirrored by...who? Raku? Who else is holding up the "who fucking cares what social service providers think" banner?

The hand-waving is all yours. The money will magically appear, right?

@9, most of them do. Some do not. Not everybody is a case manager, either. The answer comes out to, as SHSC says, "millions of dollars a year". Where's it coming from? When is it going to get here? These are real questions.

Who else is holding up the "who fucking cares what social service providers think" banner?

Fnarf and Dave Meinert and Tim Keck are clearly saying that. Social service providers are saying go ahead with the $15 minimum wage now. Social service providers are also saying that they can't fucking live on $9.32, and $13 once they get a master's degree.

You're not smart or insightful by saying there are complexities. Do you seriously think literally everybody who can form words realizes that?

The problem is income inequality and workers getting paid poverty wages while a minority (who happen to almost all look the same) become wealthier and wealthier. The problem isn't how to balance a budget. That's a complexity that is solved by addressing the actual problem. Dave Meinert is a millionaire from selling $12 cocktails while his workers share 400 square feet apartments a 45 minute bus ride away. That is the problem. Taxing and regulating him until he and his workers make reasonable wages is the solution.

The same obviously goes at-large as well. The public can assist legitimate hardships for non-profits and child-care facilities through new/existing tax revenue. A $2 tax on Meinert's $12 cocktails would go a long way, for example.

The point is that allowing workers to continue to make poverty wages is NOT a bargaining chip, and if you don't get that, you are not going to be part of the conversation around the complexities.

@6
First, rural Montana, Alaska etc still have property taxes. And I don't know of ANY libertarians who wants individualism in the since of living completely alone. What we want is COMMUNITY, not GOVERNMENT.

Second, I could say the same thing to liberals: MOVE TO SWEDEN! You can have national healthcare, complete with a four week wait for all appointments (source: http://expathealth.org/healthcare-news/g… ) pay more than half you salary in taxes (source: http://www.thelocal.se/20121018/43900 ) Be banned from ever owning a gun, smoking refer, and have very limited freedom of speech (source: http://europenews.dk/en/node/53019 )
What's good for the goose...

$30k is a pretty shitty annual income for a full-time worker living in Seattle. Keck and Meinert should be ashamed at themselves for opposing a $15 minimum wage. You make Frank Blethen smile.

Doug - as you well know, Keck and I firmly support a higher minimum wage. This argument isn't over whether we raise the minimum wage or not, it's over when and how.

@6

1. How did Social Security come into this (assuming you think that'll be around for you when the time comes)? I assume you think that having more kids growing up in poor families, not getting the education they need, etc. will somehow create a tax base to support me in my old age? I hope you are not counting on that.

2. I'm not a Libertarian. I'm a liberal who believes people should get paid at least $15/hr and who thinks the monied aristocracy we have created is bad for everyone, including the monied.

That said, I've seen scads of cash thrown at all kinds of public programs for decades (esp. schools) and it's clear that we need some innovative (albeit well funded) approaches. In truth, if we got education right almost all the other ones would be on the way to being solved (esp. people having kids they shouldn't be having).

Meinert, I don't know what you stand for, except your own self interest. That's fine, and I'm cool with business owners wearing their politics on their sleeve, I just want them to be honest about it.

You've been incredibly disingenuous in many of your comments, going back to your misportrayal of McGinn's support of Seattle nightlife to your support of Ed Murray for mayor to your recent claim that the closing of Lost Lake would cost 115 jobs.

I'd love to hear what your employees think. Are they afraid that a $15 minimum wage would cost them their job? Or are they willing to take that risk?