Again, unfortunately, there's no representative of the corporate behemoths—big businesses like Starbucks or Target—in this debate. But this Seattle Channel video from last Friday is worth a watch. It's a cogent, amicable discussion between Jess Spear, the organizing director of 15 Now, Bill Hobson, executive director of the Downtown Emergency Service Center, and Angela Stowell, owner and CFO of Ethan Stowell Restaurants:

Near the end, Spear and Stowell start talking past each other. Stowell suddenly accuses 15 Now supporters of having a "George Bush mentality," and Spear counter-accuses Stowell of backing poverty wages by not opposing tip credit (she does have a point).

As for how the wage increase is implemented (how one defines big business, the degree of exemptions, etc.), Stowell says she'd rather not see it go before the voters. "I'll leave it to the policymakers to figure out what that means," she says.

That stuck out to me: it sounds like an argument for apathy. The council has thus far not mustered the political will to do anything serious about foreclosures, another issue affecting low-income people. And there are 100,000 sub-$15-hourly workers in the city, according to University of Washington researchers, but none of them are on the city's Income Inequality Committee charged with drawing up a wage increase policy. Shouldn't working people have a meaningful say in this? Why should they "leave" the question of their wages to anyone else?