Great article!

And ... the crucial difference between being an activist liberated from consequence and a public official with actual responsibility is driven home again, for the 1,000,000,000th time in human history.

a fine article, but shouldn't there have been at least mention of the recent pending ethics lawsuit against her? (which while put forward by the side o'eeeEvil, might actually have point what with phil-locker encamped on the 2nd floor of city hall and all)

McDonald's, with their suggested "budget sheet" for employees, comes to mind.

That McDonalds "budget sheet" was disgusting, and revealing - but there's another part to it. Technically, McDonalds doesn't employ any of the workers it was purporting to advise on their budgets. Technically McDonalds supplies goods and services to its many franchise owners, and it's they who hire the low-paid workers, and it's they who regularly abuse them and pay them even less than the low amount they're legally required to. There are effort to pierce this legal fiction, but the outcome is uncertain. For more, see this.

Well reasoned and well thought out article. Part of what has been missing recently. Thank you for this!

You mention a competitive advantage for small local businesses if the roll out is delayed by a few years. But doesn't this essentially give big businesses a significant advantage in hiring? That is, won't the best candidates compete for higher paying jobs even if they don't come with small business indie cred?

31K doesn't buy crap in WA state for anyone who doesn't already have a paid housing situation or sleeps on someone else's floor, or has a family of six with everyone working a minimum wage job.

I support this, but isn't everyone spitting in the wind. Seattle is basically a place for very, very wealthy people.

Although at one point, it was termed "America's Last Middle Class City", I realize now that that was a very ephemeral time and due to the massive exodus post-Boeing in the 1970s.

In a way, Seattle was like America after WWII. The reason it was a good deal was because everyone else was so screwed up, and we were the only ones left standing.

Now there is increasing parity. But with increasing parity comes a lack of specialness. Seattle is no longer special. It's just another expensive place to live...maybe a worse deal than ever.

Are we making it better, or ignoring the obvious.

For the record Amazon, Microsoft, and Google do pay poverty wages through their contractors. Parking workers, receptionists, commissary workers, and janitors are all paid well less than $15.

I'm a little disappointed in a $11/hr start to her phase-in for small businesses and nonprofits. Why not $12 or $13, in light of research that says up to $13 has no negative impact on employment? http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2…

I'm afraid the Council will whittle it down to $10 by 2015, which is really only about $0.50 more than what the state minimum would be by then.

@1

Yay! Another dumbfuck prediction that will never actually come to fruition! You just won first prize for, "Best Moronic Prediction Ever"!

@12

And what do they always say about you? You're a dumb POS? No, you're a giant fucking dimwit? No, that's not it...

Anyone?

@15

Because a good 4 comments are representative of the whole! Never mind the Slog regulars have been discussing these things in detail for the last few months and all you've been able to reply with is, "durrr, yer a quitrrr!"

And its not like everyone from Paul to Meinert have made a phase in priority #1 from the beginning in order to get a minimum wage hike passable.

Or... Or is this Meinert's troll account? I think this might be Meinert's troll account.

Great article! Nice to read a such a thoughtful piece on such a 'hot button' item

God, Olsen bless your heart but I couldn't have written a better conventional wisdom summation with no tactical analysis than this article attempts. SA has one Council women and 15now would need the support of4 more and the mayor, IF the MCC doesn't make local minimum wage illegal. We've been talking for months how if we got14,13 it would be a victory. What other city council is even talking about fifteen? As Goldy says you don't walk into a car dealership hoping for the sticker price. What are businesses suggesting besides more of the status quo?

#19...what did Kshama Sawant ever do to you?
And why would you want the only person on the Seattle City Council to fail?

It's not like its wrong to try to get wages raised.

The second line of the last post should have read "The only person with courage on the Seattle City Council".

Excellent article. I was disappointed by Sawant's all-or-nothing approach because it seemed to abdicate real leadership in crafting a workable solution. The fact that she has started to carve out a real proposal speaks well of her. She has managed to add some nuance without sacrificing the clarity of the goal or the method of getting there. Kudos to her (and to you for the article).

@ mistral
whoa. I want you to understand something... I read a lot of tedious, technical material every day. I cant make it past the halfway mark on any of your comments. You are really boring. If you want to be less boring, you should lose the smugness, and the condescension, and the Nostradamus act. I don't even know what you're points are because I cant make it all the way through; the tone alone makes me disagree with you.

Dude, you really need to get your tone together. Like I said, I can handle very dry material; your material is smug and boring. I did make it through your last two, but I had to try twice.
To answer the @29, no I dont disagree with the material because of the tone, because the tone is not smug and condesending. You should try it out.
To answer @30, I now at least know what you think. I disagree on almost every point, but meh. Proving someone wrong on the internet is tiring. Your tone is still terrible though. You seem to think that your earlier comments were too nuanced for me to understand, which isnt true. The smug boringness is just a turn off

Mistral: here's the thing....

1)a lot of people ARE stuck at low-wage jobs for long periods of time now...NOT because those people are "quitters", not because they don't work hard(people at low wage jobs generally work harder than you or I ever would)but because

a)we're in a continuing recession caused by what amounts to a long term capital strike by the 1%.
This group has been sitting on huge amounts of money, refusing to invest it in any way that would create new jobs or otherwise improve the economy, JUST because, in 2008, the voters choose the candidate who was only pro-corporate and anti-worker 99% of time, rather than 120% of the time as either McCain or Romney would have been (Also, they don't want this president to succeed because he's black, but they can't come right out and SAY that).

If those people had been doing what they were supposed to be doing and building their businesses and expanding the economy because that's what their class is just meant to do, we wouldn't still be in a recession.

But they aren't, so most people have no alternative but to stay in whatever job they've got, even if it's a job that pays next to nothing.

(OK, they have ONE alternative, and that's to starve to death. Do you see that as preferable, though?)

The other thing is, we now know that basing our economy on a large number of low-wage jobs and only a small(and declining)number of higher wage jobs is bad for the economy and bad for the country.

The statistic that showed that almost a million fast-food workers are paid so little that, even with full-time jobs, they are still eligible for public assistance, is proof of that.

Forcing people to stay in low wage jobs actually increases government spending(something I assume you don't like)which requires higher taxes to sustain over a long period.

And getting rid of that public assistance wouldn't solve that, because then a lot of those people would have no alternative to turn to various forms of crime in order to survive, which would then lead to more spending(and increased deficits)through the need to construct more prisons and keep more people in those prisons for longer and longer periods of time.

It's much cheaper, overall, simply to pay the higher wages so that people have at least a chance of getting out of their current situations.

The present economy, in which a lot of people work for next to nothing while a few people at the top both skim off the wealth those people working for next to nothing create and at the same time continue to cannibalize the system by asset-stripping the companies they own for high ceo bonuses for themselves AND unjustly high short-term rate-of-return for their investors, is going to tear itself to bits.

Best to move away from that now, to admit that the Milton Friedman fantasy of "the free market"
as the way forward is now doing more harm than good, and to get back to the 1933 to 1980 basis of our economy, when progress was shared by most and sacrifice was not imposed solely on those on the bottom.

We need to encourage cooperatives to restore regions and industries that corporations left to die...we need to change the workplace so that all who work have a say in what is done and how it is done and in which training, education, creativity and respect for all are a part of daily life, and we need to take economic power away from the 1%, because they won't stop until they've reduced all the rest of us to subjugation and servitude.

The majority deserve something better than the status quo, because all people deserve to at least be treated as human beings, rather than simply pawns in the games of the few. We should all matter, and we should all be treated as if we DO matter. That's the only way to have, finally, a civilized world, and a life that's something other than respiration, perspiration,copulation and expiration.

Well, the "tone" isn't appropriate-you're not entitled to act as if you have the economic equivalent of papal infallibility.

You simply hold one set of opionions...nothing you support is any more beyond question or above debate.

And the collusion by the wealthy to keep people out of work is real...they've repeatedly admitted it...they're doing this to force people to elect a Republican president, because they believe they are entitled to get electoral obedience from everyone with less money than they have. I didn't make it up, it's been proven, over and over.

Well, the "tone" isn't appropriate-you're not entitled to act as if you have the economic equivalent of papal infallibility.

You simply hold one set of opionions...nothing you support is any more beyond question or above debate than anything anyone else supports. All you do is parrot the Koch Bros. "line".

And the collusion by the wealthy to keep people out of work is real...they've repeatedly admitted it...they're doing this to force people to elect a Republican president, because they believe they are entitled to get electoral obedience from everyone with less money than they have. I didn't make it up, it's been proven, over and over.

Mods...could you please delete post 34? I meant to stop it from posting because I realized I'd left something out. Thanks.

@Mistral
You're honestly acting like a dick. I do understand your arguments. Saying that its unfortunate that I "don't understand"(your quotes) your position after reading my comment shows a lack of intellectual integrity. I do understand your position. I said that I did, and that its lame that you keep insinuating that I dont, or cant, understand. I just dont agree with you. Surely you have seen this before, having used the internet before this week.
You have to clean up your tone and attitude if you want anyone to listen to you or agree with you. If you're just trolling, troll on. The thing is, if you're so smart that you have all the answers, and no ones listening to you because of your tone, maybe you're not smart enough to convey them in a way that creates change. And if you're not smart enough to approach people how you should, maybe you're not as smart as you think about that other stuff either.

even working a 40 hour week, at 15.00 an hour, you WOULD BARELY BE ABLE TO AFFORD LIVING IN THE 98122/98102 area codes. this has become a joke.

@39
what are you talking about? What "conspiracy theory"? I haven't made any arguments about the minimum wage to you.
I told you the truth about your tone though. You should really clean it up if you want to be taken seriously by anyone. If you haven't learned this fact of life, thats not my problem, its your's. And seeing you not know it makes me call into question your judgement on other matters.
An ironic observation: You consistently misunderstand or misrepresent what I say to you, while claiming that people who disagree with you are either misunderstanding you(they're not) or too simple minded to understand(they're not).
If you want to talk about the minimum wage with me, you'll need to sound like less of a condescending d-bag. Its just the usual pre-req in this society, I suggest you start workin on it soon.

@mistral
Im not a saint here to provide a glowing example for you. Im just telling you why no one was listening to your ideas. You persisted in your unpleasent behavuior, doubled down on it, and got under my skin. So I used very direct language to tell you how I felt about your approach.
Its bad. If you want people to listen to you, fix it. If you want people to think youre a jerk, keep it up. It really has nothing to do with your opinion, its just your lame attitude.