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SeaTac is a small suburb south of Seattle where Seattle's main airport is found. Yesterday voters approved a ballot measure enacting a $15 per hour minimum wage. Washington state already has the highest minimum wage in the U.S. (9.19/hr).
I listened to an interview of a sandwich shop owner at the airport. He said that his labor costs were going to increase by about $90,000 per year, and he has no idea where that money will come from. He expects that the Port of Seattle, which runs the airport and regulates his pricing, will have to agree to some price hikes. Right now he is required by the Port to charge prices no more than other similar businesses in the region.
I expect that some of the fast food places in SeaTac will just go away. The ones that remain will hire and keep only the most experienced and most productive workers. Teenagers, recent immigrants, people just out of prison, etc. need not apply. In effect they just tore a bunch of rungs off of the bottom of the career ladder in SeaTac, WA.
If someone works 40 hours/week for 50 weeks on that wage, that's a 30,000 salary. You can bet that all other salaries will be going up to. A starting accountant in Seattle might make 46k or something like that with a master's degree which is total BS.
Yikes. So go to school to be a teacher and make 34k, or park cars for 30k. That doesn't sound right.
You throw in tips and that valet makes more than a teacher because we pay our teachers so poorly in this country.
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