Three cheers for Anna Minard.

No, friend. Fifteen cheers for Anna Minard. It's the way we do things here now.

Thanks Goldy!

Why not report on how HA Blog sees the min wage?

"$15 in 2017 Dollars, by 2025"

For many workers that's exactly what the mayor is proposing.

Also, Goldy points out that the mayor's proposed wage table assumes a 2.4% inflation rate-- close to double the rate we've had the last few years. So the mayor's numbers likely exaggerate the post-$15/hr wages Seattle workers will receive.

Why did the Stranger fire the only legitimate wonk on staff?? You kids are lost without Grandpa Goldstein to walk you through the policy fine print.

Face it, the only sane compromise would have been $22 by 2022 with a $21 training wage for teens, zero exemptions, and $15 for everyone in 2015.

Real wages for productivity minimum wage should be $27 today.

You're still serfs and my investments show the difference.

This is truly an excellent and well-written piece, Anna Minard. Thank you!

Fifteen well-deserved kudos and shout-outs to you, and everyone looking
into every economic graph and pie chart that this new bar Seattle Mayor Ed
Murray and the City Council have raised nationally and globally.
It is important for our region to continue studying the pros and cons of what
the overall impact will be over the next seven years and beyond, and to adjust
for inflation and future generations.

Tangentially; a bonus of this passing could be to help curb the proliferation of formula retail in Seattle since I haven't heard anything about city hall taking up that cause.

Next stop: Maximum wage. Bring back the state high-earners income tax! We need that on the ballot every single year until it passes.

I guess you missed this one: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/m…

@10 Oh fuck Slate and their click farming.

Troll @11, actually, a burger-flipper in 2014 is almost certainly 50% or more productive than a similar worker in 1968, thanks to technology. What has happened since 1968 is that all the productivity gains of technology have gone to business owners and executives rather than to workers at large. There's no reason why those productivity gains shouldn't be distributed.

If you adjust for productivity, depending upon how you measure it, the national minimum wage would be somewhere between $16 and $22/hour. So $15/hour does not quite capture the proportional gains of productivity since 1968, even assuming the lower number.

This is also why we should be indexing to per capita productivity gains and not inflation.

I tend to think of this the same way I think of the smoking ban and the plastic bag ban in Seattle. Imperfect, but I'd rather have it than not have it.

i'm just excited that tipping can go back to a rational 15% on pre-tax total.

Anna said: Think about it: A year or two ago? A $15 minimum wage seemed kind of bonkers. This took a lot of work, and it will benefit tens of thousands of people here in Seattle, for sure—and then, if the trend continues, perhaps millions more across the nation. ...

Golly. How did this whole thing come about? There seems to be something missing from this story? I have a vague recollection of a person who ran for council with this issue as their centerpiece. Hmmm...

It all goes to prove the validity of the logic for electing Sawant: shift the parameters of the debate to the left. This would not have happened without her victory, and the need of the Establishment liberals to co-opt and defuse it.

@5

Remember that time Goldy was fired from The Stranger for being a worthless turd, that is proof positive that not every worker is worth $15 an hour.

This news just in: The mayor has decided to phase-in his plan to eliminate restaurants and bars from Seattle. Instead of creating a large-scale Tenderloin District right away, as encouraged by economic laureate Kshama Sawant, the City has decided to phase-in "Operation Detroit" over the next 3-5 years.

Uncertainty exists as to the fate of current low-wage workers who discover fewer jobs, a higher cost of living, reduced hours, even higher productivity expectations, increased competition, and elimination of their Federal earned income tax credit.

The City has not yet determined where at least one (please just one), member of Council will take a very basic economics class in future, as the resources for Seattle Public Schools will now come under further serious pressure.

The announcement was greeted by nostalgists for the City's retro economic plans, who burned cars, threatened commuters, and broke windows on Capitol Hill in recognition: And by Vladimir Putin who commented from Kiev, "Dang, I thought everyone was going to do Kleptocracy a little longer. But Seattle is the sociopolitical tastemaker, and I guess 'throwback' is the thing that all the hep kids are doin' now."

Hooray! $15 is the minimum wage in Seattle now!

What, it isn't? Well, when will it be?

Who's declaring victory here, and why? All I see is a watered-down proposal from a watered-down mayor with no actual force of law. Wake me up when actual paychecks reflect a $15 minimum wage. Until then, stop cheering.

A shame there is no more actual policy analysis now that Goldy was ousted. Instead we just get posts of simple graphs talking about how they are "too hard" to understand.