Don’t really know why anybody should be surprised that Mayor Ed Murray’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee would “fail to reach a consensus” on raising Seattle’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. Murray filled the room with business owners and low-wage worker advocates. If there was an easy consensus to reach between these two camps, government coercion wouldn’t be necessary. And let’s be clear: a minimum wage is government coercion.
It was worth trying. And the conversation was worth having. But consensus never seemed a likely outcome.
And so Murray will pick and choose from the committee’s ideas and put forth his own proposal today. And then the folks who really get to write the ordinance—the city council—will get to work.
UPDATE: The mayor’s 1:15 pm press conference has been bumped to 3 pm. Is he hoping to achieve “consensus” after all?
yep. misattributed Otto von Bismarck quote:
this sucker will read like instructions to the space-shuttle. this will result in everyone being somewhat dissatisfied and at the same time furnish lots of bracken for political hiding.
(by-the-bye, i think you need a “n’t” in your headline, Goldy)
@1 Inspiring respect isn’t the function of laws. Even sensible traffic laws don’t inspire respect; they have to be enforced, because coercion is the only language some people understand.
@1 Yup. I suck. Fixed.
This reminds me of something my older brother told me after he had done many years of refereeing soccer games for his kids’ leagues and then for adult Sunday games.
After what was supposed to be a low stress non-conference game I officiated in another sport went terribly wrong when one team began to physically threaten me, I told my brother it for sure wouldn’t have happened if I had treated it like an in-season game and stepped right in maintain control of the emotions of the game at the first sign of trouble.
My brother told me that one of the key tenets of game officiating is that, “If it is just for fun, they don’t need an official.”
Low wage jobs are low wage jobs for a reason, making tacos or parking cars is not worth a $15 dollar an hour starting wage.
@5
C’mon.
I’ve eaten tacos so good I’d pay $15 per hour to the person that made them.
Not in Seattle, but…..
@5 You’re one of those idiots who believes bosses pay workers according to what they contribute to the company’s profits. This is not true and has never been true in human history. The division of economic spoils between employers and employees is, and always has been, based on the relative bargaining power of the parties. And employers have always tried to stack the deck in their favor — through laws criminalizing unions, workplace rules forbidding employees from telling other employees how much they’re paid, etc. Low wage jobs are low wage because of the weak economy, high unemployment, and the resulting surplus of workers, not because the work is easy or unskilled.