Maybe a good percentage the people polled are opposed to the phase-in? Or maybe there's more to this push poll?

Slimy pro-poverty Koch tactics seem to be par for course for these folks, though, so who knows.

Business interests are to keep the minimum wage as low as possible. (Doesn't anyone understand how capitalism works?) Because the poor dears are so broke, they probably had to hold bakesales and start a Kickstarter campaign to fund this poll.

Socialist Kshama Sawant believes the world is not flat. Do you strongly agree, somewhat agree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree?

Their main strategy is right there in the questions--link raising the minimum wage to Sawant and socialism and throw out some names of long-dead non-American Communist bogeymen.

@5 says it better than I do.

Yay, they finally devised a push poll with results they could release. I wonder how many other polls they ran before they got the number they wanted? There's a skeleton in that closet for anyone who wants to rake some muck.

But no matter. They're not going to win. Today Tamara Murphy, queen of Terra Plata, took to the Facebooks to make sure the whole world knows she thinks her employees are human garbage. Didn't even take a leaked email to get that "job creator" on record with what she really thinks.

Thanks for the raise, Tamara.

It's pretty common for people to support something generally more than they might support a specific proposal.

I know I support a $!5 minimum wage, but want to see some accommodation for the legitimate business issues it will cause. Like allowing a small credit for benefits.

A new poll of 400 Seattle voters, taken last week, shows a sharp drop in support for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, just as Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is preparing to send a recommendation to the Seattle City Council.

The survey by Portland-based DHM asked voters if they would favor increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2015, with a phase-in for small businesses and non-profits with 10 or fewer employees.

Forty-seven percent said they would support such a wage with 48 percent opposed. A similar poll by the same firm in January showed a 68-25 percent margin in support.

Cthulu> Same Polling Firm different results.

@9

Similar. Just like paying someone take care of your lawn is similar to being an 'employer'.

The previous public poll was by EMC Research. Joel got his initials wrong,

I'm not even a $15/hr wage supporter and this poll question and potential answers seems very biased and unnecessarily confusing. Mentioning the socialist Savant serves only skew the results against the issue.

I'm certain they asked several different questions but only released this one.

@8, so assuming you have a job, and that job gives you some benefits, would you agree to have the monthly value of those benefits deducted from your wage? If you don't honestly answer "yes", you're a hypocrite.

I was one of the subjects polled, and it sure as hell felt like a push poll. I gave the answers they didn't want.

@14 That's it. You're blacklisted from their randomly selected list of registered voters now.

My lawn is looking great right now.
Take a look at this article
http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/202…

No poll ever remains at 70%, for any initiative. Most pass or fail by a few points. Except for the income tax, which was CRUSHED.

As someone noted the devil is in the details. Asking if everyone should be given a pony will generate high pro pony approval. Now ask those same people, with the details of how the cost of pony stabling and feed included, if everyone should be given a pony.

See, the childish ideas that liberals hold simply don't work in the real world of adults. You can get mad at voters for recognizing that or you could grow up and try to match your ideology to objective reality.

And for what it's worth I listened to a debate rebroadcast with the idiot Sawant.

She's incoherent. She can stay on point, answering a question without sloganeering diversions. In most things she's antagonistic and borderline rude. In all things she was plain wrong.

The best summary was given by her opponent. Capitalism, with all its flaws, is at heart based on mutual acceptance. Socialism is at heart a philosophy of externally applied force.

Above, of course, should have read 'she CAN'T stay on point.'

If Seattleblues is against something, chances are I'm for it.

@16

Again with the cherry-picking.

That piece of shit article is precisely why I've been calling again and again and again for these "job creators" [sic] to open their fucking books already. "Our tipped employees reported $1.5 million in tips in 2013." We don't know how many person-hours it took to earn those millions in tips, do we? How come we don't know how many millions Poquitos brought in in 2013. Or what their profits were? How much did Rich Fox pocket? And so on and so on and so on.

What are you not telling us, Rich? How many more of these guest op-eds from boutique businesses are we going to be subjected to? It's a big steaming pile of lies and bullshit.

Fuck the cherry-picked numbers. Either open your fucking books and tell the whole story, or fuck the fuck off all-fucking-ready.

As far as I'm concerned, anybody peddling cherry-picked statistics is straight up admitting the truth: $15/hr, no cutouts, is doable, is right, is good for business and is good for the economy, and anybody who has to cherry-pick numbers to oppose it is a lying motherfucker.

Fuck off back to Fox News if you want to cherry-pick bullshit data.

...as opposed to the poll in a month or two ago, financed by the same unions pushing 15Now, that said 68% of Seattle supported it. Yeah, that poll wasn't "bias"...

In Seatac, a MUCH MORE working class town than Seattle, in which the pro-15 people outspent their opposition, it only passed by 77 votes out of over 6,000 cast. Do people really think Seattle, which is MUCH bigger, has A LOT LESS (proportionally) minimum wage people and has A LOT more small businesses that will be effected, will pass this by 68%?

This will fail just as soundly as the Monorail extension did.

@24

Bias is a noun. Biased is the adjective you were swatting at.

If you thought it wasn't going to pass, what are you in such a tizzy over?

@25
First: http://www.evilmilk.com/pictures/Grammar…

Second, the same question could be asked of 15Now: if they think so much of Seattle supports them, why keep banging the drums like a bunch of morons?

And another thing Sanders isn't mentioning is that Sawant wasn't advocating for a phase in when the first poll was taken, so of course the polling question wouldn't include that one.
And the last poll was conducted ENTIRELY DURING THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY ON WORK DAYS. Most people with real jobs are working at that time so of course the numbers would be skewed.

@27

Real jobs. Unlike the so-called "jobs" people who work nights and weekends have. That contempt is one of the reasons you can't win over the voters. Between the contempt and the lies, well, all I can say is, thanks for the raise.

This thread certainly proves something: Only thieves and liars are against the increase.

@26: Maybe we'll stop correcting your grammar when you stop incorrectly characterizing as "ad hominem" simple instances of people saying things you don't like.

@26 "Banging the drums like a bunch of morons?" Like, perhaps, releasing patent bullshit push-polls?

@26 Because "banging the drums" is how one raises awareness and get people to the polls. It is part of how one plays the game of electoral politics. ....Moron.

@22 If Subhumanblues is squaking about "objective reallity" one can rest assured that Subhumanblues is frightened. Of what idk, one would think a landlord would want folks to be able to pay the rent.

@33

Yeah, like they weren't already doing that. Sounds like you haven't had to make rent in Seattle for the last few decades.

@36

If you have evidence that cities with a high cost of living got that way because of their minimum wage, don't keep it to yourself. Perhaps you imagine San Francisco was cheap until they got a minimum wage there? It wasn't. Kind of like how you imagine you know something about Settle rents?

It's fun to pretend to know about things you've never experienced. Or researched. Thanks for sharing.

Another Push Poll in the works Jason W.
I hope you and your cronies who have "contempt" for small business enjoy the constant stream of Op-ed pieces and employee interviews against $15 over the next month.

Heh, what does Seattleblues care? I thought he moved his family into the Vatican as permanent ex-pat refugees to flee Washington after we legalized (thrice over) the evils of gay marriage?

@38

Yeah, everyone noticed. Constant stream of op-eds. Constant. Stream. Of. Op. Eds.

If only Seattle hadn't realized years ago that The Seattle Times does not represent our values. The Times is the paper that speaks for Bellevue and Kirkland and Everett. It's just located centrally, in Seattle. For convenience, I guess. And habit.

And now Tim Keck is waging a one-man war against his own paper, fooling nobody.

Good luck with that. It's rather transparent. People get the fact that the 1% has the power to wage these kinds of propaganda campaigns.

@40
And the Stranger represents Seattle? It speaks for Capitol Hill, Fremont and Ballard only. None hipsters who drink things besides PBR and actually eat meat and don't live off of a trust fund are not represented in this paper.

As for Tim Keck (who?) how about these people: https://www.facebook.com/TipsAreWages

Notice all the actual restaurant workers saying Sawant is full of it?

And as for that "1% vs the 99%" line, do you have any idea who came up with that? A man named Karl Hess did. And guess what? HE WAS A LIBERTARIAN!

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/20…

Obviously we need to compromise more ...

How about a $23 minimum wage with a $8 tip credit that phases out $2 a year over 4 years?

@41

Yeah, who the fuck are those "Tips are Wages" people, anyway? What a shadowy, mysterious group. What are they hiding, you think?

Initiative 518
Shall the state minimum wage increase from $2.30 to $3.85 (January 1, 1989) and then to $4.25 (January 1, 1990) and include agricultural workers?

Initiative 518 = 85 percent increase in the state minimum wage over two years, it did not include using tips to pay a work's own wages.

SIMPLE, enforceable. 15 bucks, Do it now. We will all be better off, just like after I508