"Seattle raises minimum wage to $15 an hour" By: McKay Fugate

Martina Phelps says the Seattle City Council's historic vote Monday to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour could change her life. Phelps, 22, earns $9.47 per hour working for a McDonald's restaurant near downtown. She wants to move out of her mother's South Seattle home, and she wants to go back to school. She says those things could happen now that the city will have the nation's highest minimum wage. "It's hard right now," she told USA TODAY hours before the midafternoon vote. "I have been trying to save up for school, but I just can't do it. This would mean a lot."
The council unanimously approved the measure before a packed house.
The plan, which includes a lower training wage aimed at teenagers, will phase in the higher, local minimum over three to seven years, depending on the size of the business and benefits they provide employees. Next April 1, when the plan takes effect, every worker will get at least a $1-an-hour raise.
City officials estimate that about a quarter of workers earn less than $15 an hour. Full-time work at that rate translates to about $31,000 a year.

"I think I deserve a raise," she told the Times.


I just want to point out, that Seattle is now leading the country in just about every major political turnover: Legalizing gay marriage, marijuana, and now raising the minimum wage. While I completely agree that the minimum wage should increase dramatically, I think that one of the points of the oppositions is that minimum wage jobs are not meant to serve as a livelihood, but simply an entry level job. I mean, I make below minimum wage. Perhaps if our workforce was more educated they could achieve those higher paying jobs rather than reaching the ceiling of their career early in life. I think education reform is more in order than simply giving them more money.




http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/06/02/seattle-minimum-wage-vote/9863061/