Washington minimum wage goes $7.35 today

Washington’s minimum wage will rise to $7.35 today, holding the top spot as highest state minimum wage in the nation for the second year in a row.

Following a voter-approved initiative in 1998, the state recalculates the minimum wage each year, reflecting the change in the federal Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers.

This year’s increase lifts the minimum wage 19 cents, from $7.16 an hour. Last year, it went up 15 cents, rising from $7.01 an hour. Under the new minimum wage, a full-time worker will earn $15,288 per year. Under last year’s rate, that amount was $14,892 per year.

The minimum wage is hotly debated by business and labor organizations. Business organizations say the regular increases boost the financial burden on employers and make it harder to create new jobs and give raises. Worker-advocate organizations say the increases help prevent inflation from cutting the buying power of the state’s lowest-paid workers.

Washington’s minimum wage applies to workers in both agricultural and non-agricultural jobs, although 14- and 15-year-olds may be paid 85 percent of the adult minimum wage, the state Department of Labor and Industries said in a news release.

Washington is one of three states nationwide, including Oregon and Florida, which have voter mandates to automatically adjust their minimum wage each year. Fourteen states have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum, which is $5.15 an hour. Idaho goes by the federal minimum. A full-time worker earning the minimum wage there brings in $10,712 per year.

The Association of Washington Business opposes the annual raising of the minimum wage, saying that coupled with hikes in health coverage, workers’ compensation and regulatory fees, the minimum wage makes it harder to create new jobs or give employees raises.

Faced with higher costs for workers, employers hire fewer people, cut hours or reduce benefits, contributing to poverty and unemployment in the state, AWB President Don Brunell said in a recent column.

However, the Seattle-based Economic Opportunity Institute says since the recession ended in November 2001, Washington has lost jobs at a lower rate than the national average. Most of the states that had a minimum wage above the federal level in 2003 created jobs at a higher rate than the nation as a whole, the institute said. In addition, Washington’s unemployment rate has been higher than the national average for decades, even when the state minimum wage matched the federal level, the institute’s research shows.

The 2004 Northwest Job Gap Study, published in September by the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations, says the minimum wage isn’t sufficient to cover basic needs. The study says that a single person living alone in Washington needs to earn between $8.68 and $10.07 per hour to cover basic costs, including utilities, food and housing, depending on where the worker lives. A single person living in Idaho must earn $8.68 an hour to make ends meet, the study said.