Letter: State minimum wage increase makes sense

As soon as they heard that Raise Up Washington’s proposed ballot measure would provide paid sick leave and raise the minimum wage to $13.50 by 2020, business owners threatened that they’d be forced to cut jobs.

But they warn this every time the minimum wage increases — 26 times in the last 54 years — and Washington still has plenty of restaurants, bars, and caregivers like me.

Why does the job-pocalypse never come? When workers like me have more money, we spend it on local businesses, which hire more workers to handle the increased demand.

In a Jan. 19 editorial, the Herald calls the minimum wage “starter pay.” But for the more than 750,000 Washington workers who make less than $13.50, “starter pay” is all we have. We’re not burger-flipping teenagers — the average age of an American minimum-wage employee is 35.

Adjusted for inflation, American wages have stagnated for 40 years, and the minimum wage has fallen. In 1968, the Washington minimum wage was the equivalent of $10.90; we’ve been stuck at $9.47 for the past two years.

A raise makes sense. When we all do better, we’ll all do better — even those threatening doom and gloom.

This story was originally published February 10, 2016 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Letter: State minimum wage increase makes sense."