Marches and “fast food strikes” like this one in 2015 outside the First Hill McDonald’s were part of the push for the new minimum wage
By Domenic Strazzabosco
April marks the tenth anniversary of Seattle taking a new path on its minimum wage. On April 1, 2015, the city became the first in the United States to enact a $15 minimum wage and a process to lever the wage higher to account for rising costs and inflation. As of January 1st, Seattle’s minimum wage sits at $20.76 an hour.
It has been a long climb to get here. A look around Capitol Hill shows some of the impact.
CHS checked out local postings to see what employers were offering new workers come the decade anniversary of the legislation.
Glo’s Diner, now next to Cal Anderson Park, is looking for a line cook and pays $21 an hour, just over the minimum, and the position is included in the tip pool. Menya Musashi Tsukemen & Ramen offers slightly more at $22 an hour, plus tips. Salt & Straw’s Seasonal Scooper position pays exactly the minimum wage, $20.76, and calculates that the average tip rate is $7.89 an hour.
Outside of the service industry, the Member Experience Sales Associate role at Orangetheory Fitness on Broadway pays $21 an hour, and the posting notes other benefits like a 401K and the potential for PTO and medical insurance after an “initial measurement period.”
Meanwhile, a Food & Beverage Lead with Seattle Rep pays $23.01 to $25.12 an hour, while an Administrative Assistant for affordable housing developer Community Roots Housing pays $24.50 to $26.50, depending on experience.
Both the Minimum Wage Ordinance and Wage Theft Ordinance were passed on April 1, 2015. The former immediately increased the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour (it was slightly over $9 an hour in 2014) with yearly increases, while the latter ensured that employers paid all owed wages and tips to employees.
Lan Chase, who is paid minimum wage at his job at Goodwill on Belmont, says that although the annual increases are nice, it never feels like enough. Soon after Chase received a pay increase at the new year, he was notified by his landlord that rent would be going up.
“Maybe for the first couple of months it’s nice and you’re able to put a little bit away because the cost of everything else hasn’t gone up yet, but after a little bit—after that initial raise and everything else around you starts to adjust to that—you’re not really able to put a lot away,” he said.
Chase said that his friends who make a few dollars an hour more seem more comfortable living in the neighborhood. He said that if minimum wage were somewhere between $23 and $25 an hour, minimum wage workers would feel more financially secure and be able to set money aside and save up for things.
Blue, who was involved with organizing the Fight for 15 movement starting back in 2011, said something along the same lines. Thirty dollars an hour is what she says would be an appropriate minimum wage to make life in Capitol Hill affordable.
“If you have to cut your profit margin down, that’s fine, pay your workers,” Blue said. “My personal philosophy is if you can’t afford to pay a living wage, you have no business being in business—point blank.”
The movement began with calls for “$15 Now”. It took Seattle seven years to get there.
Unanimously approved by the Seattle City Council in 2014, Chapter 14.19 required businesses in Seattle to incrementally raise their minimum wage each year until reaching $15 per hour over seven years. At the beginning of 2021, Seattle’s minimum wage increased to $16.69 per hour for large employers with more than 500 employees and small businesses with less than 500 employees finally reached the $15 an hour mark.
Flanked by Sawant’s Socialist Alternative wage advocates, Seattle’s mayor signed the minimum wage ordinance into law at a table in Cal Anderson Park in 2014
District 3 Councilmember Kshama Sawant held the minimum wage victory as the core accomplishment in her decade on the city council.
In 2013, the Seattle Central and Seattle University economics professor included a promise of a fight for a $15 minimum wage in announcing she would take on incumbent Richard Conlin for his seat on the Seattle City Council.
By 2014 following Sawant’s victory at the polls, then-Mayor Ed Murray joined Seattle officials in applauding passage of the legislation as the city’s political establishment embraced the higher wage.
It is sometimes a tenuous hold. Last year, current District 3 representative Joy Hollingsworth backed off a proposal to permanently extend a tip credit put in place ten years ago to protect the city’s small businesses during the phase-in of the higher minimum wage tied to inflation. The expiration meant hourly pay rates for the many small businesses subject to the credit leapt about $3 an hour in 2025.
While many predicted a massive wave of shutdowns in the city’s food and drink industry, there has not been an obvious increase in closures. The proposal was a reminder for many that the fight for the city’s minimum wage won’t ever really end.
From a worker’s view, the end of the tip credit and higher wages is hard to argue with. Chase said he doesn’t see how anyone could see expiration as anything but fair. He doesn’t think that being paid the minimum should depend on whether or not you receive the tips you’re hoping to get.
Recent data shows that the average Capitol Hill apartment costs about $2,100 per month, while working a minimum wage job at Seattle’s current rate comes out to $4,023 a month before taxes. Seattle’s current rate of $20.76 an hour is the highest for any major city in the United States and the fourth highest overall, coming in behind Burien, Tukwila and Renton, respectively.
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Scummy landlords and business owners want you to think paying fair wages is why they have to close or raise prices. They’re just butthurt and whiny about not netting insane profits. Boo hoo. Pay the piper! Thank god we care about labor and paying people here. Don’t own a business if you can’t pay workers.
Hmmm…
It appears you’re advocating for larger corporations to enter our community, but remember that these companies prioritize profits over people, treating their employees poorly while raking in millions. In contrast, small businesses genuinely care for their staff and contribute positively to our local economy. With soaring rents, significant inflation, high employee wages and steep city taxes, small business are struggling. If we are going to pay fair wages, which I’m in support of, why doesn’t the city step in to help???
I want whoever can pay workers, corporate or small business.I don’t want bitchy owners crying about wages. That simple really.
I dunno if I agree that larger companies treat their employees shittier than small companies. In my experience local business owners are much more shady. Everyone shits on Starbucks, but no one I’ve talked to that worked there has ever complained about the way they were treated.
Meh…Starchicken isn’t as pure as the driven snow. But they do do frade A job imo. Almost A+ until the bathroom policy.
Now let’s talk NBA teams? F-
You sure would think they were the devil by the comment threads on this blog. Also, Jason, chill out. There may be some greedy business owners out there, but the ones hurt the most by the current economic climate and the ones working harder for employees they care about. If you have a ton of money because you a a shrewd prick in business, you aren’t going anywhere. You can absorb it. A kind boss typically doesn’t make the sort of money a cutthroat one does. Try not to project …
Why not have the city provide a ‘denizen stipend’ instead of taking flyers with subsidies on businesses – cut the middleman that can and will barf on themselves out of the equation entirely.
‘denizen stipend’
Like an Andrew Yang deal?
In that ballpark, sure. It’s mostly on the thought that if you’re really about ‘letting the market decide’, then you’ll give consumers the means to select winners, instead of giving enterprises who can raise capital a backstop simply for being able to raise capital.
Ah I see…Well General Electric pays no taxes. Zero.
They make more money playing money games than their manufacturing brings in.
A lot of the businesses have closed not just because of wages but bad management and business decisions or not opening a unique enough business that don’t develop a following etc. but then they always blame Covid and wages when they shutter.
Businesses are too often opened as “someone’s dream”. Not realising the location isn’t right. The concept not polished or business numbers do not add up and so on.
Running a business is no joke. But if you have personal issues? Like thinking other humans are undeserving of wages. That’s on you and you will have a miserable time.
Too many business owners are like rottweilers with their business and space. When in reality?
If you take on a partner in your business. AKA labor? You are all in it together. And when one half works for charity (tips) and the other is the only one to see the books.
Hmmm…I wonder what happens when the business runs w/o you? You hoard cash. Hope to open more businesses. But everyone else works their entire lives with nothing to show for it. The “partner” is actually exploited labor. Period. How you are treated is not a luxury. It’s common courtesy we all should give each other.
But small businesses? They do not care at all about your success. Your life. Nothing. Make it to work. That’s all they care about. Because labor generates profits. NOT the owners.
My suggestion is ask for a fishing pole instead of fish for a change? If labor is so keen and grand? Then get a job and leave the business side to the ones who can.
Businesses are not people. Yet they all vote for the Nazi party.
Its like you don’t realize there’s a human on the other side.
says the person who had their comment removed by the moderator.
Okay genius? How many kids were actually my kids and how many was extended family from other relationships?
You got 4 guesses.
Thanks for your usual balanced and insightful comment Jason. Clear you put some real thought into these issues before you wrote.
i love how deadpan you are sometimes. I actually laugh. Made me smile.
Love your comment!
You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you are being an aggressive asshole to hide this fact. I’m one of those business owners. I own a very “successful” neighborhood restaurant in Seattle that has been around for over a decade. We have a line out the door on Friday and Saturday nights, and our neighborhood would never guess that we are struggling. I have averaged $71,000 a year during our time. I have invested $523,000 over that period of time to make that $71k a year, and I just had my business evaluated, because I am planning to sell it. It’s worth about $225,000. Since math isn’t easy for you, this means that all of this blood, sweat, tears and blame from dickholes like you with zero empathy and creative thinking skills means that I’m likely walking away from a neighborhood institution this year after averaging about $46,000 a year, if you spread the loss of capital investment out over my annual payout and pocket the sale money. I’m not saying that there aren’t greedy people out there making tons of money, but until nutbags like you start recognizing that all this Seattle character comes on the backs of people that you persistently malign, I’m going to point out the folly of your blind rage. And guess what, pal? While my neighborhood gentrified around me, I had to make daily decisions about whether to raise prices and choke out my neighbors to make more, or eat shit and make a place we could all enjoy. I chose the latter, while my tipped staff now make $45/hr, because voters in Seattle don’t believe us when we say – “WE ARE STRUGGLING TO MAKE IT.” Show empathy for all humans or lose your fucking coalition, Sawantian clowns.
Uh oh, the petite burgeouis is threating to side with the fascists!
Wow, mask off. Screw you, pal. Concern trolling gentrification and overhead because you cannot afford labor. Maybe don’t have a business if you can’t pay the piper. Find another profession or career. You’re NOT entitled to a business. And NOT entitled to customers. It’s a privilege to own a business. So if you have one, PAY YOUR WORKERS A GOOD WAGE.
Did your place sell mojitos cause this is a muddled mess.
What are you expecting from people who toil for less when
A. You lived out an experiential dream
B. You made modest livable money compared to your most successful peers for living out an experiential dream.
C. It wasn’t a ROI golden lottery ticket like a labor-only job ever is, unless you’re an athlete.
And then you go off the rails with
D. If you are Seattle culture, it’s no wonder this city neglects itself over and over again because…
E. Voters are supposed to be rooting for me like the thrust of the American Dream says they should!
F. You refer to a politician even local socialists no longer regard as anything at all
G. You’re threatening to withdraw from an imaginative coalition in your head unless proper deference is shown to you as a sign off.
Maybe the breakdown isn’t clear, but this isn’t how people talk to one another about their jobs, and maybe you can cry in the arms of Zippy down below who is the only one who will ever understand you, unless…
You need a job, I know a place that’s hiring.
hey man, say what you will…But zip’s perfect for that role. Big arms.
wow dude…you left out a lot of that story. things do not happen in a vacuum.
Having close to the world’s highest minimum wage has sucked the vitality out of Seattle’s restaurant and bar scene. Hours of operation have shrunk and many once thriving spaces are now a sad shell of their former selves with few customers except for weekends because no one can afford to go out anymore. The lack of a tip credit is what has really thrown it out of balance. Once upon a time these spaces were full and activated all week long. The sawantists can scream about workers all they want, but the reality of the situation they created is that nearly everyone including the workers are worse off.
It’s simple, like super simple, don’t own a restaurant if you cannot pay workers. You know this going in.
no no no no no…Small business is a protected class. We tax payers make up the difference in food stamps etc. so they can pay as little as possible.
You don’t think there’s something kind of hinky about “We only had a nightlife because people who do the actual work at points of engagement are a rightful economic underclass?”
It’s about him…”Me first”
where is this desolate wasteland?
We opened more than closed last year. Maybe those businesses suck?
Jason is a far-left ideologue and as such there is no way to have a rational discussion with him. My advice (to all): ignore him.
Ah yes, caring about the needs of others over selfish greed is such a bad thing to be about……………riiiiiiight
Zach once famously said that the apartment buildings across from Dick’s created an urban canyon, so that’s what you’re dealing with with him.
Figures, good to know! LOL
Some business owners aren’t shitbags, believe it or not.
nobody is saying that.
Dicks treats employees fairly.
50 years of frozen wages as productivity has skyrocketed and the wealth gap never bigger?
It DID NOT happen because business was benevolent. The fact is business is simply make profit. Full stop. Businesses are people now.
Just those two facts says it all.
First in the nation to enact 15? SEA-TAC passed and implemented it before Seattle and with less of a rampup. Initial momentum came from the protests that started in New York.
https://www.seattle.gov/laborstandards/ordinances/minimum-wage/minimum-wage-ordinance-10th-anniversary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_for_$15
I think this Capitol Hill Times excerpt below gets to the core of this intractable social issue of minimum wage vs. housing rental cost:
…It (minimum wage increase) never feels like enough. Soon after Chase received a pay increase at the new year, his landlord notified him that rent would be going up.
I would prefer to see an infographic of apartment rent increases related to wage increases. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that whatever incremental increase in wages is directly correlated to the increase in rent. People (landlords and property owners) who are in the business of making their living from housing are always going to charge exactly as much as they can and this is going to be exactly 50% of minimum wage for the cheapest apartment. They have costs as well, that aren’t getting cheaper.
I tire of the renters accusing “landlords” of being greedy. Such lazy thinking. That sounds great until you walk a mile in their shoes. Providing housing as a means of income is brutal and risky. Every tiddly wink increase from a property tax initiative and required City improvement for ADA/energy/retrofit/electric appliance/heating system has to be provided by increasingly expensive trade work. A friend recently had a plumber put in a new water heater in a cold-weather failure, and the plumber charged $350/hr, not including the materials.
The only sustainable solution for urban areas is for the City/County/State to reconcile with the fact that low-cost housing availability is a civic right and to start providing substantially more publicly owned housing. This should be built by public employees as it once was, so the housing cost can compete against the outrageous hourly fees of private tradespersons and general contractor markup. We can do it, Seattle! This is true rent control. Make public housing competitive against private ownership and increase supply to reduce demand. How to afford this in a budget crisis? Not by taxation. One method practiced in several other countries is to require renters to put refundable deposits down towards a rent-controlled unit.
I don’t have sympathy being a shareholder in a cooperative, lol.
“I tire of the renters accusing “landlords” of being greedy.”
Oh? Are they all benevolent? Nope, they collude to set prices. Period. Realpage or no. That is the market. Buy up housing. Then fight like hell to stop any more housing.
How are they colluding? searching Craigslist?
Did I stutter?
All great comments. From folks who never ran a business.
Here’s another great idea. Why don’t we feed the mayonnaise to the tuna?
Whatever you are doing for yourself doesnt translate outwards.
ya run it like a family budget right?
Slackers and losers who want the dole. The lot of you.
My whole career, i ran a business, paid ton of B&O tax, city tax, federal tax. No body gave me a chance, but I bet on myself and was successful.
I know when I hear victim speak. It’s too many of you.
That being said, try being responsible for your own life and deal with the uncertainty of being a business owner.
It might give you time to consider your reproachments against things you do not fully understand.
PS Eat a bag of di@ks.
So then 80% of the world is simply losers? Because that is who you are talking about.
Also? Raising 5 kids is a lot like a business.
Maybe you’d show me all your awards from your military service? Like a purple one or maybe a bronze one?
Remember the socialists demanded “15 now,” without a phased-in approach and incremental increases chained to the consumer price index. Business and labor negotiated a plan both could live with, while ensuring the minimum wage would increase every year. If the socialists had won, the minimum wage would have snapped to $15, with no guarantee it would go up every year.
Socialists are why you even get a weekend and healthcare. Can it already.
socialists defend the country and have since it’s inception.
socialists gave me the right to overpopulate.