The United Cities of America: What Seattle's Minimum-Wage Deal Means

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/rise-of-networked-cities/361597/

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On Wednesday, a Senate filibuster blocked President Obama’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10. Then on Thursday, Mayor Ed Murray of Seattle announced a business-labor deal to raise the city minimum wage to $15.

Procedurally, these two things had nothing to do with each other. Substantively, Seattle’s action is a direct result of the Senate’s inaction—and it portends the acceleration of two trends in public policy today: a growing willingness to reckon with radical inequality and wage stagnation, and the emergence of networked localism as a strategy for political action.

Let’s first unpack what happened in Seattle. The mayor appointed a committee of citizens to develop a proposal for $15. I was a member of that task force, which included union leaders and businesspeople and nonprofit heads and chamber-of-commerce chiefs. We gathered data. We commissioned studies. We held a big public symposium. Negotiations were complex and often heated and the committee missed its deadline, but we eventually got a deal that won the support of 21 of 24 members.

The grassroots “$15 Now” activists who helped propel a socialist to the city council and helped put this issue on the map last year are unsatisfied with the number of years and the accommodations. They aim to go to the ballot directly with a plan that’s closer to, well, $15 now. And the city council still must vote to enact this or any plan, and may come under pressure to amend it many ways.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Good for the $15 now folks, and

without them, you never would have gotten '$15 then'.

This is the part of politics that the establishment types so often overlook. The 'fringe' left needs to be allowed in the conversation. You need to start with high, even 'outrageous' demands when you sit down to bargain, so that you can wind up somewhere good when the bargaining is over. If they'd started lower, your current deal might have been similar, but with a lower endpoint, or taken even longer to get there.

And the continued pressure for more will help convince business leaders that things could have been 'worse', and that what they got actually was a compromise, and not just a 'loss'.

[pipoman]

2. $10 would be a good start out here on the plains

Where a typical 2 bedroom apartment rents for $600. $10 is a gimme for most all urban areas. This one size fits all idea of 'living wage' is flawed.

Nice to see an urban area trying to do something for those with the least.

[Agschmid]

3. It might be a gimme but in Mass, it's still just $8 an hour.

Boston has some of the priciest housing stock in the country too so image trying to buy (or rent) based on $8 and hour!

And yes the "typical" hourly wage may be more than the minimum but I guarantee some people make the minimum.