I would buy that T-Shirt.

I'll wait on hearing whether there is a devil in the details or a poison pill buried in the fine print, but on the surface this looks promising.

For better or worse, this is what you get when you try to do something by consensus.

Seattle may just get trumped by a much better plan in Berkeley tonight. Watch it closely.

"Every single person gets a substantial raise every single year. Everyone gets to $15. And everyone gets to a real minimum wage with no deductions for tips or benefits"

Well said!

Maybe in three-to-seven years, fewer people will have to rely on food banks as a result of this plan. Maybe they will graduate to buying Ramen noodles. Victory or not, our work here is not done.

Gee, two sides with widely different points of view manage to meet in the middle. Somehow that's unsatisfying to Ms. Minard.

I think the only thing that would make this more helpful/honest is a line that shows what $15/hr in 2014 dollars would be going forward and when/if the minimum ever "catches up" (hint, it doesn't).

Using the 2.40% CPI estimate listed on the graph, that would make $15/hr in 2014 = $17.71/hr in 2021 (after 7 years), when some portion of the city's lowest paid employees will finally just be getting to $15. Also, this is still $1.22/hr less than what even the largest employers in Seattle would have to pay. This plan has some good and smart compromises... but saying that it gets Seattle's minimum wage to $15/hr is spurious at best. Even the 18.13/hr minimum in 2025 is $1.34/hr below the CPI adjusted $15/hr in 2014 equivalency.

An intractable breach between business and labor is bridged, and agreement is made in an era of absolute political paralysis everywhere else, and the minimum wage is headed up faster than anywhere in the country, and looks to move up faster compared with inflation beyond that time ($18/hr in 2025)

If you like your actual policy to fit on a bumper sticker, you're disappointed. If the idea of policy that fits on a bumper sticker terrifies you, you're pleased.

Even though there are some parts of this I don't like, when the minimum wage gets phased in it is a simple and substantial step up for everybody. We never would have gotten some this good without 15 Now threatening a ballot initiative. Small compromises considering.

Kshama's best next move would be to start gathering signatures but not submit them until after this is passed out of the council. She should hold of on endorsing or condemning this until the final version is approved.

Without pressure from 15 now this will get watered down by the city council.

This way Murray is out of office so he gets to give away someone else's money and not deal with the ramifications. Win-win for him!

@#19 - you are so correct on the "nobody will know why". They have already slowed our economy while threatening this. Of course that doesn't show up yet. And after it starts, one month later as they did in Seatac they will say, "see nothing happened". I think doing it slowly will slow the damage and in seven years it may be just fine, but it is going to be a hard sell to get a business to open in Seattle.

But at minimum, this will be far better than $15 now. You won't throw people into a new tax bracket, people won't be priced out of their benefits so abruptly and it won't make as many people unemployable so quickly. And, who knows what will happen in seven years, except we know Murray won't have to take the blame because he'll be retired, probably making mucho bucks as corporate consultant.

@19, a graph showing fewer shitty jobs over time, good idea.

@21, true, Seattle will just not be as attractive for shitty jobs in the future.

This really should be embarrassing for Murray. When people are irrational you don't engage them in this way, build them a committee and make promises.

If an individual came into my business and offered to buy a product at 75% discount I would not continue on with that individual. They aren't rational and I can't win. Now if someone came in and asked for 20% discount I would engage further and potentially negotiate with them.

Or, an employee came in and asked for a 61% increase. I can't imagine the conversation where I would say, well in seven years we'll get to where you want. You just wouldn't do that. A rational individual would hear them, say I understand and here is what we can do this year and maybe next year and let's talk again. You don't say, oh yes, you deserve this but let me show you how you'll get there in SEVEN years.

Not sure why he is so afraid to call the demands of $15/NOW untenable or irrational and deal with things like an adult.

SEVEN years. That is a really long time. No city policy should play out over a SEVEN year range. How does that affect the new things they will be wanting, like Healthcare and paid M/Paternity leave?

If you can't do it in THREE years, then you need to go back and say we can't do this and come up with something realistic.

"Meeting in the middle" would be something like a three year phase-in for small business and a partial benefits credit. The Murray Plan represents a complete rout od thr $15 Now movement.

I think one point is missing from this conversation: Once the big businesses start paying $15/hour, there will be huge competitive pressure on smaller businesses to do the same.

Let's say your choices are "work at McDonald's for $15 an hour," versus "work at small independent bookstore for $13 an hour." You'd have to really love selling books (or not care about the difference in pay) to be willing to take the second option.

The independent bookstore will probably have to pay $15, or close to that, just to retain qualified employees. As a result, it's likely that smaller businesses will have to raise their wages sooner than is required by law just to compete. Otherwise, the only employees they have will be those who aren't good enough for McDonald's.

@23 - The problem with that concept is that so called "shitty" jobs are with businesses that also have, what you might consider non-shitty jobs. Most of my staff currently makes $15/hr but I need some lower level folks to fill out the gaps and allow the $15/hr folks to have the time to add the value they are hired to do. If you have to have EVERYONE at a higher level it becomes likely not the city you might want to open your business in.

I worry that rents and groceries will follow the exact same chart. The professional owners of things in this city can just raise how much they charge for necessities based on the percentage of the wages they get from the workers. If I make 1600 a month now, and pay half that in rent, what's to stop my landlord from raising my rent the so he still takes home %50?

@29, what's to stop my landlord from raising my rent the so he still takes home %50?
the rent controls that Kshama campaigned on, obviously.

http://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2013/1…

this is a fucking nightmare, you can't just jack up minimum wage for do nothing motherfuckers that haven't earned shit.....think about it.....please

@28, those people filling out the gaps, as a concept, are making up for your wages with my tax money to feed their families, as a concept.
I'm already carrying your lower level employees by subsidizing workforce housing and food stamps, and healthcare.
If some business doesn't want to come to Seattle to put a portion of their wages on my back as a tax payer, well that's great news as far as I am concerned.
I'm shifting the burden of your employees back onto you.

@32 - interesting way to look at it. The fact that you subsidize some of the people who work for me has little to do with what I pay them. I have employees who have more household income than I and an employee that has six children who earns above the "living wage" but will ever be off public assistance. So, that is still my fault or somehow my responsibility?

Trust me, I pay more than enough taxes to cover all the expenses that my employees might need in subsidies, even the one with six children. So now, I pay my taxes to cover this and more and increase pay.

This idea that all low-wage workers are on are public assistance has not been born out by this committee's research. In fact the study commissioned stated that the minimum-wage population mirrors the general population, non-poor. That is there are many people who work in low-wage jobs that are not needing subsidies because of their life choices.

I still don't get why people who are supposedly compassionate seem so bothered by the taxes they pay to care for those unable to get the skills necessary to care for themselves.

@32, you are my hero! I couldn't have said it better myself. <3

@33, you are missing the point. We are willing to step up to help others get what is needed to care for themselves, but we shouldn't have to if they are working a full time job. They should be able to get a wage that covers their basic needs without relying on a food bank or state subsidies to feed their family. So, it's not that we aren't willing, it's that it shouldn't be our responsibility to do so.

Furthermore, we could then use that money that we were using to feed your employee to help another person with vocational training so they have the skills you are looking for when hiring. It's a win win for everyone!

@33, also, sure, you can always use an extreme example about people who choose to have 542 kids and how you could never pay them enough for them to not need public assistance. I don't think that anyone is suggesting that everyone will be covered by increasing the minimum wage, but the fact is that there are plenty of people with more average sized family's that can't live off what the minimum wage is now. It needs to change, and now it is.

AND, these arguments are old. In fact, they are the same ones people used when the minimum wage was first established...and yet the world didn't end, and in fact, the economy improved! Shocking.

This compromise sucks. Labor is missing a huge opportunity by not being in solidarity with these low wage workers. The headline of this article should be, "The Continuing Decline of the Labor Movement."

@35 "So, it's not that we aren't willing, it's that it shouldn't be our responsibility to do so."

I just so strongly disagree with that. As a member of society I feel that it is MY responsibility to take care of those who can't take care of myself. As a business owner I don't feel that responsibility. Just for the record, aside from the women with 6 children (no not 542) my employees aren't on public assistance.

"The same arguments and nothing has happened". Well that is an interesting perspective because it seems that some things have happened. We as a country have lost our manufacturing base. We are still coming out of what has been a very bad recessionary time, we are losing our main street business and we have an all time high youth, particularly black youth unemployment rate. But, I'm sure those who favor this or don't understand how to run a business will just suggest that "nothing happened" and blame someone else for the problems our economy faces.

And I'll spare you the history of our economic success in the last 20 years or so that has been bubble after bubble, not a real working economy at all which is why we are here discussing this.

@29: Fish wrote, "If I make 1600 a month now, and pay half that in rent, what's to stop my landlord from raising my rent the so he still takes home %50?"

Nothing will stop that besides whatever is stopping it now. If your landlord could get away with charging more now, he or she probably would.

A good compromise would keep this schedule but add in inflation indexing from the start. The problem with raising the minimum wage in stages without an inflation index is that local inflation may very well wipe out a huge chunk of the difference.

Failing that, keep this compromise but overweight the indexing when it first kicks in so that increases outpace price inflation until a liveable income threshold is hit. Ideally, the minimum wage should be tied to a realistic evaluation of expenses in the city, and not just a simple CPI metric.

@40 I would love to hear how the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 caused our Great Ressession 70 years later, please don't spare me and school away. I am dripping with anticipation.

ALSO, yes, please take my statements out of context to try to make yourself feel better. I am happy to help! But, for the record, I want to reiterate that I said that it's not that we have issues helping those who can't help themselves, it's just that when someone is working full time, regardless of where they work, they shouldn't need help. Unless they have 1,264 (or 542) ( or 6) kids, because that's just extreme, and there are always outliers.

@27 that assumes short supply of labor. We have an abundance of labor available to what the job market demands... which is less and less and why wages have been driven down. The only way to inhibit this decline and maintain fair living wage standards would be mass union organizing and strikes to achieve demands or through legislation. I'd love to see the workers organize though so when the slog or anyone else says "Labor" this or "Labor" that, we know who is represented. How many of the labor leaders referenced as endorsing this deal are elected by rank and file unions including workers who would be affected by a minimum wage increase to $15 anyway?

A quick inflation calculation reveals that the final target for the year 2025 should be $19.47, not $18.13. Mayor Murray's plan fails to adjust for inflation in the first three years, from 2014 to 2017. As a result the final value of $18.13 is only a little over $14 in TODAY's dollars.

If there's one thing Ms. Sawant could squeeze out of this compromise proposal, it would be adding inflation adjustment for the first three years!

You mean "labor aristocrats":those phonies aren't true worker-rights advocates,they have already proven they will collaborate with the Common Foe:the Employers. ---- http://www.iwa-ait.org , http://www.iww.org , http://i-f-a.org . (A)

Any business that refuses to pay a livable wage deserves to go belly up.

Any employee that refuses to work for a livable wage deserves to go unemployed.