Oh lord...why must I feel impelled to do things...BUCKLE UP FOLKS!!!! In response to certain posts and arguments posed over raising minimum wage I decided to do a small amount of research. Out of the 13 states that raised minimum wage at the start of 2014 I decided to research Washington for 2 reasons 1) they had the highest increase in minimum wage out of the 13 states involved. From $9.19 per hour to $9.32 an hour for the period of August 2013 thru August 2014. Note...its only 13 cents and 2) My understanding is that Washington is one of the best economical states out of the continental united states. A few facts... Historically Washington state ranks high in number of business starts but also ranks high in business fails. (stands to reason and is logical) Washington states growth is from retail and service areas. ( which also coincides with the same time the legalization of selling marijuana occurred) Erin Shannon ( Director of Small Business of the State of Washington) says Washington is an attractive state because of quality of growth and entrepreneurial spirit but we believe high wage does IN FACT hurt business. Washington state from August 2014 to September 2014 saw an overall loss of 1,500 jobs. Non Partisan Congressional Budget Office states while raising minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would lift 900,00 ALREADY WORKING citizens out of poverty it would also mean loss of 500,000 jobs. ( so one set of people come up out of poverty but another set who were doing fine now have no job at all. So we are just trading victims of poverty?...thats 500,000 LOST jobs.) Again..please forgive me folks... U.S. unemployment rate: July 2013 - 7.3 % August 21014 - 6.1% Washington unemployment rate: July 2013 - 7.0% August - 5.6% This shows on average and comparative with the rest of the United States no great surge on Washingtons part and in fact stays right around average of the rest of the country. Chart 1 shows Washington states unemployment changes. As you can see there is no great spike from 2010 until now. Just the same steady decline. Chart 2 shows Washington states Job growth. Again no remarkable change since inception of new minimum wage just steady increase as before. What I have gleaned from any of this is... 1) There is no noticeable change in economic rise that wasnt there before the minimum wage increase of ....get this...13 cents. 2) Service and retail are up. go figure...start selling marijuana and retail business grows. I wont even go into how much revenue Washington state has generated since the legalization of marijuana..Its astounding. Im going to state the obvious here...if I were to place any credit to Washingtons small blip of a boom...Id place it on the legalization and sale of marijuana. Research the numbers. Staggering!!!! But i see no proof of the minimum wage causing any rise. There numbers are moving at a steady rate since 2010. Slow steady rise equal to the year last.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 17:24:54 +0000
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