Comments

1
One question I'm really not clear on (and I'm hoping someone here knows the answer) - how will franchises be treated? If someone owns one or two McDonald's, for instance, does that count as "large" or "small"? Is the 500 based on total for the brand nationwide, or for what the Washington corporation actually owns?
2
Kshama Sawant's press conference . . . was what 'manning up' looks like @MayorMurray, @CMLicata
3
... "Seven years is too long, but we're not going to give you $15 until long after that."

Also, wow this is insane. I suspect the people other than Sawant who didn't vote yes did so as a way of giving business more leverage. "Look, you better vote for this pile of shit, because even this pile of shit isn't ok with some businesses! They want to just bury you in shit!"
4
That chart is not complicated, you just have to read it.

It is a real limp-dick plan though. Murray needs to grow a pair of whatevers and start representing the will of the people. That is, $15 no exceptions.
5
This kind of schedule makes it harder for workers to know whether they are being paid fairly or not and makes enforcement more difficult, but it's better than nothing.
6
This is actually better than I was expecting. It's not perfect, but the fact that business and labor both support it is huge.
7
This entire episode is useful because it clearly demonstrates that our so-called progressive city leaders are not progressive.
8
This plan isn't complicated at all as far as policy and law goes. It's not "$15 Now" but neither is the 15Now group's plan. I also like the plan in relation to the State's minimum wage--much better than COLA at all levels.
9
Unbelievable. I don't see any details yet but it looks like the wealthy business community got everything they wanted and then some. Unethical business owners will just continue and expand mandatory splitting so that tipped employees actually make less than today -- everyone will make $11/hour only just by stealing tips from the front of house staff, and the business owners don't have to pay taxes on it. There better be a rule against that in the law that's passed, but I seriously doubt it.

It looks like Dave Meinert can go ahead and buy a 3rd mansion outside the city. His net worth just went up.
10
It's bullshit. Both @4 and @5 are right; it's easy to understand and to cheat.

Murray can fuck himself. Licata - huge disappointment. Huge.

Forward Seattle looks like a bunch of Astroturf garbage. They're going to choke us with their money.

Fear and confusion. The worker loses again. And on May Day. It's not $15. It's more like $13.50. And all the glowing "We won!" exuberance is just the cologne being sprayed on the turd. It reminds me of the gloating when the tunnel finally won its electoral approval. I'm beyond angry. It's fucking bullshit.
11
Let's all take a deep breath here:

1) Seattle will have the highest minimum wage of any city in the country. By a good margin.

2) Everyone gets to 15 and it is thereafter adjusted for inflation.

3) Big Business (the bulk of low wage workers) get there in 3-4 years. In the meantime workers get raises of $1- $1.50 per year, nothing to sneeze at.

4) Tip Credit and Health Care Credit, which the business community wanted bad, only amounts to slightly delayed phase-in, so is not a permanent fix.

Is this the plan I would have written if I were King of Seattle? of course not, but actually getting something that is pretty darn good passed is a lot better for workers.

12
So a firm with 499 US employees and 2499 outsourced employees in India or China is a small business?

Really?
13
@1 @3 @4 @7 @9 are correct

Should have stuck to the $22 by 2022 with a $21 training wage for small business and $15 in 2015 for all that was the original compromise
14
How to figure out if the business you are patronizing pays a living wage:
"Excuse me manager of Tacotime, which of the 4 trauches do your employees fall under, and if I tip them in the new 'TacoTimeTipTin' does that reduce their effective wage? I see you take a health care credit, do you provide decent coverage or do most of your workers refuse to waste money on it? Oh you pay $12.23, so is that above or at minimum wage, let me pull out my handy chart, just a second I have to unfold it, okay, it looks like you are required to pay $11.50 as it is the year 2018. I guess taco bell having to pay $15.36 pushed your base wages up $0.73, so I will eat here, after holding up the line for 10 minutes."
15
Also the WA state minimum wage COLA has been ~1.2% since 2000, I wonder why Murray is being so optimistic with a 2.4% increase.
16
It is a compromise. Progress has been made and Seattle is on a path for a livable wage with an adjustment for inflation. This is quite an accomplishment. And it looks like enough people are on board to make it so. Certainly there will be a ballot initiative and we will see how that ends up. But it will be nice to know that this plan is the fallback position.
17
I'm ready to vote now for $15 now, no exceptions.
18
What a crap sandwich.
19
Seems like a good deal to me, the far left and far right aren't happy that has to be a good thing. And what happens if you take $15 now to ballot and it fails?
20
Bruce Harrell?
21
Big Business (the bulk of low wage workers)


Can you cite this? The vast majority of businesses are small businesses.
22
Now that we have two plans there can actually be some compromising.

In one corner, we have a three year phase in for small business. In the other, a 7 year. Let's compromise and say 5 years! And that would be meeting exactly in the middle! We could even call it the 2,3,4,5 plan!

And then there's the fact that one plan has a rather grotesque definition of small business and total compensation while the other doesn't. So, let's agree to keep the total compensation (phased out in how many years necessary) so long as the definition of small business is <300 people.

Now that's compromising.
23
500 employees seems like a big number at which to draw the line. But if they added more categories, it gets more difficult to enforce. It would be informative to see a list of which companies fall into which bin.
24
@21:

"Two-thirds of America's low-wage workers work for companies with more than a hundred employees, such as Walmart, McDonald's and Yum! Brands, parent company of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/19…
25
I think the seven-year phase-in is too long, but that chart is not difficult to read at all. It's a spreadsheet -- a small one. Have you never seen a spreadsheet before?
26
I know you're trying to make the mayor look bad with the headline, but really it makes you look bad.
27
OMG! This math stuff is so hard (at least for ONE reporter...)!

Yes, "15 Now" is a nice, simplistic slogan for dimwits like WIS. But that's not how you get things done, and the result is not always neat and clean.
28
@25 Yeah, but it's a wrong spreadsheet. If we're doing "2.4% CPI estimated once $15 per hour is reached," the numbers after $15 in each column would be different. While column A is correct for 2025, all the others aren't. Column B would be $17.71, C would be $17.29 and D would be $16.49.

Make the bastards explain their math and get some assurance that they mean what's in the columns, not what's up top. This isn't a 7 year phase-in, it's an 11 year phase-in.

Anyway, which part of "$15 Now" was so hard to understand?
29
@28- the first column is adjusted with CPI. The other columns adjust more quickly so that in 2025 all employers have the same minimum from that point forward. Did you even read the article? This isn't as complicated as some of you seem to think.
30
"Too complicated for reporters to understand"!
Well, that is good news, It must be a pretty simple plan then......
31
@22... I agree with your compromise, but I would add one more. The end result after 5 years has to equal $15/hr in 2014 dollars, for that I would be willing to extend the total comp. phase-out to 7 years. Otherwise, let's write it up and put it in front of the council!
32
I'm no spreadsheet master--I haven't even opened Excel in over a decade--but that chart is fairly simple. If you have questions about just who fits where and so forth, that's one thing, but if you're truly confused, you probably shouldn't be reporting on anything involving numbers.
33
I like this plan.

And I question the intelligence of people who object to it due to the "charts being too difficult".

Every business will be falling into a single one of these schedules.... I would also guess that much like the current minimum wage and workers comp charts that already must, by state law, be posted in every workplace, that the same will continue. People will be able to tell if they are being paid correctly because the city should require the *One* chart that applies to their employees, to be clearly posted. It is not up to an employee (or even really the employer) to define which chart is used. It is up to the city and it's auditors.

As for the plan itself, I am not bothered by it's phased in approach. The phasing allows all businesses time to adjust to the new reality, and in 7 years, it is moot. We should have a *permanent* wage floor that grows with inflation.

The nay-Sayers should tread carefully: I suspect that those that object to this plan, are probably pretty evenly split between those that think the wage is too high, and those that think it doesn't come fast enough. The middle ground is the clear winner here, which in time will have the desired long term effect of a livable wage for all.
34
A pleasure to read everyones comments here. Most of you seem rational and able to prove your claims. Is this the internet im on??? I cant believe my eyes lol:)
35
Once again, liberals rack up all the political costs inherent in trying to do something useful while not getting all the benefits that come from actually doing something useful. Way to go, "centrists"!
36
OMG - What am I supposed to do... like read ALL 10 LINES and attempt to understand them? Can't they just, like, tweet it or something? Spreadsheets are like so confusing...

Are you serious? This is what passes for "too complicated" for some people? Suck it up and do the reading.

Christ, we're acting like a city full of 7th graders with ADD.

If your public policy fits in a tweet or on a bumper sticker it's WORSE, not better.
37
Will there be any safeguards against companies splitting up on paper to avoid hitting that 500 employee "small business" threshold? I mean, if I own a business that has twenty locations throughout the city, with over 500 employees total, what will stop me from incorporating half of them under one name and half under another so that I end up with two distinct parent companies each with under 300 employees? I guess that eventually all businesses will be paying the same wage under this plan, but until 2025 there could be a lot of room for employers to undermine the its intent. I am guessing that there will be companies using a lot of legal maneuvering to end up qualifying for schedule D.
38
@36 There are eleven lines (plus two more in the left-hand box, not counting whitespace). Counting is hard, eh?

@37 One thing I wonder about... If there is a pay differential between employers, wouldn't employees gravitate towards the higher payers, potentially starving the lower payers of the best employees?

Well... Another thing I wonder about is, how the fuck will this pass constitutional muster? Similarly situated employees, doing the same or very similar jobs being mandated different minimum pay levels? Seems like an equal rights problem to me.
39
How many people are going to be thrown of their homes because they can't afford the rent or work themselves to death by the time the Mw becomes $15??

THE RENT CAN'T WAIT.
40
@raku you are an idiot, really. What do you do for work? Have you ever owned a business!? All local businesses are wealthy? You have to be kidding me! So many business owners are operating business owners, they own a business because it is their passion it was their dream. I thought the American dream was about working your way up, maybe opening your own business one day. Now apparently it's a crime if you are too successful. Quit lumping local business owners in with large corporations. This business owners fucking care about their employees, their jobs, their contributions to Seattle! Unlike walmart who intentionally tries to keep their employees at a disadvantage but wait we don't have any walmarts in Seattle so let's attack the local businesses now. Don't make stupid remarks until you're educated and knows what it takes to run a business. Let's not be ignorant
41
Whoaaaaaa. I find the headline of this article alone disquieting.
Shit!
43
@42 mistral -- I will use myself as an example. I work for a large (>500) company that pays for my health insurance. I don't get tips, but the imputed value of the health insurance (based on Cover Washington) is about $5.75/hr. I fall under Schedule B, and my minimum wage would be based on that chart.

That took me about 2-5 seconds to figure out.
44
Okay--I just read Anna Minard's related article wrap-up of Mayor Ed Murray's and Seattle City Council's decision on raising the minimum wage city-wide.
That's more encouraging.
45
Anna Minard and "Reporters Can't Understand" the "Minimum Wage Plan" because it's "So Complicated"– It requires the ability to read and comprehend a table – very much like those ypu would use to file your taxes. Okay, so it makes your hair hurt to think so hard, but try not to inflict your ineptitude upon your loyal and curious readers, Mayor Ed's stupid plan notwithstanding.
46
Not as easy as a table (And it really isn't a "spreadsheet" so don't call it that.):

The CPI (consumer price index), or better yet, the "chained" CPI.
It's basically a scam that assumes everyone buys the same things. The Chain-CPI assumes everyone will buy cheaper things. (Hello, Mal-Mart. How ya doin'?) It's a lousy substitute for COLA (cost of living allowance) or the next best: inflation indexing, in which the minimum goes up, keeping pace with inflation.

Just for fun:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stat…

47
"• The difference between large and small business is indeed 500 full-time employees, (this includes employees nationally, not just in Seattle)"

Actually, the "difference" between >500 full-time employees and <500 full-time employees is...one employee.
Oh no, – more arithmetic!
48
If the "Reporters Can't Understand It" they must be pretty dumb
49
Ah well , that's fruits for ya. No sense whatsoever . Soon he will be in a tizzy.
50
The strategy here is "obfuscate, complicate, divide, and conquer". Murray and his business string pullers hope that you'll waste your energy trying to figure out what's in his proposal and your time arguing and nitpicking over the details.

Further, it's a safe bet that a scheme this convoluted offers plenty of chances for a decade of litigation and to it's proponents, that's a feature not a bug.

Good luck.
51
@47, how long did it take you to come up with that nugget? Or, perhaps it fell out of your ass while you were getting a douche from some Craig's List "rent boy"?

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