Wow. Good thing we fucked ourselves over by passing initiatives that work only to our detriment. Good job Eastern Washington. Choke on a fucking Big Mac.

Yeah, and while you're at it, ask all your cousins sitting around the Unemployment Offices in Yakima or Spokane or Tri-Cities why they won't pick apples for the paltry Minimum Wage you want to pay them, then blame all those "illegal immigrants" who WILL for stealing your tax money.

The more federal arrests of employers who hire illegal workers, the less problem there is with the minimum wage.

...

But nobody wants to admit GWB gave away the farm by cutting enforcement and not seizing assets and jailing employers who hire illegals.

No increase in the cost of living since 2008? Really? That CPI must not include health insurance then, because that has shot through the roof, recession or no recession.

If I understand this correctly, the CPI went up this year, the initiative states that if the CPI rose in the last 12 months you increase the minimum wage accordingly. There's nothing in the iniative that states the index has to show a net positive from some to-be-determined-by-industry time in the past. They're trying to invent a loop-hole that doesn't exist.

See, if the farmers could outsource labor, they would.

But apples need to be picked by someone.

#4 people on minimum wage don't have health insurance.

As a wage-slave restaurant worker, I hate the WRA. They are all that is evil.

The "loophole" is that when the CPI goes down (as it did in 2009), the minimum wage does not. It stays at the old level. But when the CPI goes up (as it did in 2010), then the minimum wage goes up correspondingly, even if the CPI simply returns to its previous level (or even lower). Over a two-year period, the minimum wage can increase even as the CPI decreases. It's not an unreasonable point.