King County Council to vote on big boost to minimum wage

The Metropolitan King County Council has scheduled a vote Tuesday to raise the minimum wage to more than $20 an hour at big businesses.

King County would become the first county and seventh jurisdiction in Washington — following SeaTac, Seattle, Tukwila, Bellingham, Renton and Burien — to set its own minimum wage, at a level higher than the state.

Washington’s minimum wage is $16.28 per hour.

King County’s, under the legislation, would be $20.29 per hour in unincorporated areas, tied with Tukwila for the highest in the state. Seattle’s minimum wage is currently $19.97 per hour.

But the effect, at least to start, would not be sweeping. The legislation applies only to unincorporated parts of King County and has lower minimums for small- and medium-sized businesses.

At least five members of the nine-member County Council have already publicly voiced their support for the legislation, enough to secure passage.

County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, a lead sponsor of the legislation, pointed to the seemingly arbitrary differences between neighboring communities to advocate for the change.

“If you’re a worker in a place like Skyway, your minimum wage is whatever the state says the minimum wage is,” he said in an interview introducing the legislation last year. “If you were to walk a block north into Seattle your minimum wage would be almost $3 more per hour. If you walked a block west to Tukwila, your minimum wage would be over $3 more per hour.”

Both the state and local jurisdictions raise their minimum wages every year to keep up with inflation.

King County’s legislation contains significant exceptions. The highest minimum wage level would initially only apply to businesses with 500 or more employees. Businesses with fewer than 15 employees and under $2 million in gross revenue would have a minimum wage $3 less than the headline figure, or $17.29 an hour to start off. Businesses with more than 15 and fewer than 500 employees would have a minimum wage $2 less than the headline figure, or $18.29 an hour to start off.

Those disparities would shrink gradually until all businesses have the same minimum wage in 2030.

There are about 4,100 covered businesses in unincorporated King County, according to the Puget Sound Regional Council.

Passage of the legislation would continue a local trend — Tukwila, Burien and Renton all increased their minimum wages within the last two years.

The proposals in Tukwila and Burien saw little opposition, while Renton’s measure passed despite a well-funded opposition campaign from the restaurant and hospitality industries.

Previous minimum wage battles in SeaTac and Seattle were fiercely contested.

The legislation cites a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which says a worker earning the statewide minimum wage would need to work 103 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment at market-rate rent in King County without spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

Nationwide, 30 states have a minimum wage higher than the federal $7.25 an hour. Washington’s minimum wage is the second-highest of any state in the country, after the District of Columbia.

Correction: A previous version of this story said there were only three businesses in unincorporated King County with 500 or more employees, large enough to be covered by the highest minimum wage level in the legislation. The story should have noted that companies with 500 or more employees worldwide are covered by the highest wage level. It is unclear how many companies would be covered by the highest wage level.