Minimum Wage Measure Flawed

Fri., Oct. 16, 1998

By John Webster johnwe@spokesman.com (509) 459-5421

It is a misguided kind of compassion that proposes a huge and perpetual pay increase for the worst jobs in the state.

Certainly, Washington state’s minimum wage is due for an adjustment. Now at $4.90 an hour, its most recent increase came in 1994, courtesy of the Legislature.

Initiative 688, however, simply goes too far. It would boost the minimum wage 32 percent over two years. Plus, it would require that the wage rise every year thereafter in tandem with a statistic that measures inflation in urban areas, where cost of living is highest. No other state grants an automatic inflation increase for its minimum wage.

Most consumers, wage earners, retirees and business owners cannot even dream of such a lavish pay raise guarantee.

Sure, compassion for the working poor is admirable. That’s why occasional, reasonable updates to the minimum wage are appropriate.

True, workers can’t easily support a family on the minimum wage. In fact, few do. At any one time, only 16 percent of minimum wage recipients are single earners with children. Most - teens, for instance - are supplementing the income of a multiple-earner household. That’s why the average family income of minimum wage workers is $35,682.

The only effective, enduring solution for the working poor is already available, changing one life after another: free education through high school. Cheap vocational training at community colleges. Strong businesses, with numerous career options. Pay structures that encourage and reward hard work, skill and experience.

As a result, most minimum wage recipients don’t stay at entry level. They get experience, training, pay raises, promotions, tips, commissions, better jobs.

I-688’s supporters make the breezy claim that the initiative’s mandates will do no harm.

Common sense suggests otherwise. Money to pay wages does not appear from thin air. When labor costs soar, employers have the following options: 1, raise prices; 2, cut positions or work hours for the least valuable personnel; 3, cut profits - an easier task for high-volume corporate chains than for tight-margin local businesses; and 4, cut down the ladder leading out of poverty by reducing the “step” increases granted for experience and skill.

All of those options are harmful.

If voters reject this initiative, as they should, they can be certain advocates will return, next year, with a more reasonable proposal.

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