RSSGive tiered minimum wage bill a fair shake
Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board
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This editorial appears in the Yakima Herald-Republic on Feb. 12, 2009
For far too long, employers have had to deal with our state's ever-increasing minimum wage with no ability to break through its rising ceiling of costs.
Now they may have a breakthrough.
Under a proposed bill before our Legislature, lawmakers are considering a tiered minimum wage for teens. It offers some very compelling features.
The bill would allow workers who are 16 and 17 to be paid the federal minimum wage. That now stands at $6.55 per hour as opposed to the state's wage of $8.55. Those younger than age 16 could be paid as low as 85 percent of the federal wage, or $5.57 per hour.
Any worker 18 and older would still be paid at least the state's minimum wage.
What this tiered system offers is a training wage for teens, something that would be attractive to agricultural, food service and retail businesses in the Yakima Valley. These industries provide nearly 8 percent of full-time jobs here.
House Bill 1928 is co-sponsored by Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee, and by a number of lawmakers in Central Washington.
This is the latest effort to break apart the wage barriers set up by Initiative 688, which voters passed in 1998 and requires the state to make cost-of-living adjustments to the minimum wage each Jan. 1. That has pushed our state's minimum wage to the highest in the nation and has forced employers, from fast-food restaurants like McDonald's to movie theater owners like Mercy Enterprises in Yakima, to limit access to jobs for teens.
This new tiered process would enable these employers to hire teens at a lower, training-level salary. It would not only give these teens a chance to get a paycheck, but also an opportunity to build a résumé for a better position down the road.
We hope the bill gets a fair hearing in the Legislature. It deserves consideration given what the job prospects are looking like these days -- bad for adults and even worse for teens.
* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Barbara Serrano, Spencer Hatton and Karen Troianello.
Since many local employers insist upon hiring illegals for cheap wages, claiming they can't get anyone else including students, to work for them, how can you justify any lower pay scale than is currently on the books? Just because someone is a teenager, does not make them worth less. I have seen many adults whose job performance is considerably below that of many teenagers. I am concerned that if we give yet another license to steal to our employers, they will find a way to abuse the spirit of that tool as well, just as they have done with our guest worker program and laws. Also, who is to decide where the end of the training wage comes and the true minimum wage begins in someone's job? Minimum means minimum, and nobody can live on the pay scale anyway, so leave it alone already.
Report ViolationAre you serious? The child labor laws in this state already make it difficult to give teenagers jobs. Paying them $8.55 an hour makes it worse.
Teenagers need opportunity and experience, not a living wage. Its only a minimum. Talented teenagers are able to get more than the minimum wage. But how can they demonstrate any skills if they never get experience?
I have no idea why you hate business so much. Not everyone is out hiring illegals. And even with our current unemployment, citizens aren't taking the farmworker jobs. Before you say that the wages are too low. Do some research. The problem is not the wage, but that it is hard and temporary. A skilled farmworker usually makes significantly more than minimum wage, but they have to work hard and follow the work.
If you know how things should be, why don't you start your own business and show us all how its done?
In 1967 when I graduated from Davis High School, I worked for Mayfair Mkts in Yakima for $1.65 per hour. I think minimum wage was $1.25-1.40. By working 20 hours per week I qualified for medical, dental and optical insurance. No job I have had since has had as good of dental and optical plan.
For that $1.65 and later $1.85 per hour, I was able to afford an apartment without a roommate, to pay my tuition and books at YVCC, and I bought a one year old Pontiac GTO financed over 48 months.
Try to imagine a person living on minimum wage or even 130% of minimum wage today. My GTO cost me 1,078 hours of labor, today that would be over 3,040 at minimum wage. I could buy gasoline at 5.5 galons for 1 hour of work, that is now less than 4 but was less than 2 just a few months ago. My apartment cost me 38 hours of labor, a $500 per month place costs 58 hours at minimum wage and I expect my place was nicer and a darn site safer.
The point is that while the quality of living has increased dramatically for most American, it has fallen substantially and consistently for those at the bottom of the food chain.
(This comment has been removed by a Yakima Herald-Republic moderator)
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