Minimum Wage

In 2014, Seattle's minimum wage was slightly over nine dollars while the federal wage was $7.25 per hour. However, in 2014 Seattle passed a law that would gradually increase minimum wage to fifteen dollars per hour by 2021. This is law is currently supported by two Democratic presidential candidates: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. However, when this law was implemented within Seattle, there were some unforeseen problems that occurred within local burger joint, Dick's Drive In. The president of the burger joint thought that the higher wages would make people want to work more hours. Unfortunately it was quite the opposite. Instead of taking more hours, employees decided to work less forcing the burger joint to raise prices for the first time in the restaurants history. Although Dick's already paid above minimum wage, starting at seventeen dollars as well as health insurance, because of the rising wages this puts pressure on employers and businesses to pay more "in order to compete for talent" even if they already paid above the prior minimum wage. On the other hand, this has uplifted the lives for some Seattle citizens such as Martin Johnson. He worked three minimum wage jobs and also advocated for higher pay amongst workers; the raise has brought up morale, making the employees feel more dignified and positive towards their jobs. Since this law was passed, multiple studies have been conducted to see the economical and social effect of raised wages. In 2017, University of Washington found that when the wages were raised, the hours decreased. However, last year, a follow-up was published stating that this isn't the situation for everyone; low wage workers benefited from the increase in wages. In 2018, University of California, Berkeley found that increased pay does not decrease jobs. It was also found that since Seattle's wage increase, job growth has passed the state Washington as a whole as well as increased their population by around thirteen percent. Raising the minimum wage has had positive and negative effects depending on the situation for each company/business. For example, Fire & Vine Hospitality has increased it's locations, employees and business since the increase in wages and all they had to do was change their business model to a commission based model. Although there are some unfortunate side effect of the implementation of this law, overall this is a step in the right direction for the government; recognizing the minimum wage workers and helping them earn more money to then create a richer country with healthy and happy workers.

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