SeaTac's $15 / Hour Minimum Wage Initiative: A Multidimensional Issue

SeaTac's minimum-wage initiative is causing quite a stir in the area. The initiative proposes to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, from the current state minimum of $9.50 per hour. This would make SeaTac have a minimum wage that is extremely higher than surrounding areas. There is a lot of criticism toward this initiative. There’s concern that raising the minimum wage in SeaTac is going to make it unappealing to businesses and investors, as who would want to have a business where the labor is going to be more expensive?

This tendency we also see on a large scale in our country and in the world, in the form of out-sourcing, where the tendency is to always look for the cheapest labor possible, in order to maximize profits. Though it can be contended whether that would really be real ‘profits’ when it is not profit that is naturally earned, but is artificially created by not effectively compensating the individuals providing the labor. 

One of the primary arguments against raising the minimum wage, whether at a local level or country-wide, is that this will threaten small businesses and force them to hire less employees or go out of business. Yet, if a job structure can't viably afford to pay employees a proper remuneration, then should that job exist? It’s not a sound business structure is it, if it can’t effectively pay those it would employ? 

The mayor of Seattle Mike McGinn has caused a stir recently by suggesting that a proposed Whole Foods be rejected on the basis that Whole Foods typically does not pay its employees enough. He’s received a lot of criticism for this move, with some saying that this is uncalled for and not appropriate grounds to reject what is a legal business – but this raises some interesting and important points for consideration, namely – should it be legal for jobs to not pay the individuals who provide them with labor, enough to effectively live. And does that even make sense when it’s the laborer who creates the value through their labor that even makes a business possible? 

Mayor Mike McGinn has received some criticism for viewing employee wages and benefits as a point to take into consideration when determining whether a business should be allowed into the community or not. Shouldn’t that be something we take into consideration though, when the companies which we might accept into our neighborhoods are going to affect the very areas in which we live, what kind of jobs are available and thus what level of quality of living is available to us, and for our children who will one day be looking for jobs themselves. What kind of opportunities are we creating that will be available to them in the future? The argument that this should not have any bearing in determining whether to allow a business in the community doesn’t make sense as it has a direct and significant impact on all of our lives, and thus is certainly something to take into consideration.

Yet, there are actually a lot of dimensions to this situation, and it’s not so easy as just implementing a higher minimum wage. We have to consider all aspects of our labor system, to ensure that it remains stable and viable, to effectively support everyone. Which means we should also consider how to ensure the stability of our businesses.

There's probably a lot of individuals out there who would like to operate a business, but don't want to go through the stress involved and the personal risk involved, which means that a lot of individuals are simply not going to take that risk. Meanwhile, those currently operating a small business certainly don't want to be going through that stress and risk themselves either. I don't know why we would want to have such a hostile ‘you’re on your own’ environment for businesses when it's businesses that provide jobs, because that hostile environment then translates directly into the worker experience and situation as well, where workers will have to work in sometimes bordering on slave labor conditions, understaffed, overworked, and underpaid to top it off, for all the labor they're providing.

So it's a two-way street, in essence, the businesses need the laborers, without laborers there is simply no business, there's no value created through labor as goods and services to sell. And laborers need a business structure through which to disperse those goods and services to those who would buy them. Thus, it's in everyone's interest to make sure that all aspects of labor are able to function effectively, as quite literally all of our livelihoods depend on it.

With such consideration in mind, the Political Economy Research Institute conducted a study into how it would affect businesses to raise the minimum wage, where they found that a minimum-wage increase does not necessarily significantly raise employer costs, and are covered by a modest raise of price. And with higher wages, you'd have a more stable and robust economy, as individuals would obviously be more financially stable themselves, and able to spend more and spend more regularly, which would make things more stable for businesses, unlike the situation currently, where many employees of large companies/corporations have to go on food stamps when available work volume is low and employers cut employee’s hours.

Sources:
Most Minimum Wage Earners Can't Afford Necessities of Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Pq_FDIcpw

Editorial: Mike McGinn’s Whole Foods wage campaign out of line

http://seattletimes.com/html/editorials/2021474548_editmcginnwholefoodsxml.html

Mayor’s race ignited as McGinn called out on Whole Foods attack

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021456712_westneat24xml.html

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Unemployment Up in Kitsap County - A Local Problem or is it Systemic?

Is Unemployment A Local Problem or is it Systemic?

Often there's a tendency to view unemployment as a local issue, meaning that we never really take a step back, to look at the entirety of the system and consider it's functioning as a whole. We look at individual areas and make comparisons between them as to who has made more jobs, who's doing better, who's doing worse. Yet never really seeing the big picture, of how it's all interconnected.

Within this, it's really hard to make heads or tails of the situation - is it getting better? Is it getting worse? For example, the Kitsap Sun reports that unemployment in Kitsap County has risen, with now 444 more individuals unemployed in June than in May. Read the full article here:
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2013/jul/23/unemployment-in-kitsap-county-up-in-june/?partner=RSS#axzz2Zv22Uygu

While another article from the Kitsap Sun, finds that jobs have risen in Washington state overall. See full article here: http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2013/jul/17/wash-gains-9800-jobs-in-june/#axzz2Zv22Uygu

It’s really easy to get lost in the statistics, and forget the simplicity of everyone needs a job, or needs to be supported if they’re not able to find a job. From that perspective, ‘gains’ and ‘losses’ are really irrelevant, because the bottom line is everyone needs to be supported.

Our physical day to day needs don’t wait for us to find a job, our bills don’t wait for us to find a job, our injuries and conditions which require treatment don’t wait for us to get a job. We need a constant and consistent support which just isn’t effectively in place currently, so that if you don’t find a job, it can be a life and death situation, you could lose your home, or have to forgo important healthcare and find ways to live with health conditions that effect one’s quality of living.

Since there is no effective system in place, what happens is a kind of ‘fend for yourself’ ‘each one for his own’ situation, where this exists at the individual level, where it’s ‘on you’ to find a job to support yourself, regardless of whether or not there are actually enough jobs that pay enough to make a dignified living. And we will even take it personally when we can’t find a successful job, which is really a job that pays enough, as if it is something wrong with us as an individual, but when there aren’t enough effective jobs, and everyone doesn’t have the same access to afford an education to get the necessary skills and training and degrees to get placed into the better jobs that are available, it’s really not personal, it’s built into the very system. 

And, as the saying goes, “as above, so below” – we have the same thing happening at the local government level, and the state government level, all the way up to the ‘top’ at the country level – where we will tend to look at the issues we face such as unemployment and will compare one country to another, or one state to another, or one county to another, in how each one is dealing with the situation of, for example, unemployment, but never really taking a step back to look at – but why does unemployment really even exist in the first place? Or why is it such a problem that leads to individuals losing their quality of living, when we have all the resources in the world to ensure that no one has to lose their quality of living. We even have systems in place such as welfare, but it’s not really effective.

So what happens when we focus on things from within a local perspective, is our focus is within our particular area, with its resources and companies and demographics, and we try to solve the problem of unemployment from within that. Yet why this isn’t effective is the economy of a locality is not actually limited to itself. We all actually share the same economy – it’s like a bunch of ‘little economies’ that are all part of one total economy, yet each economy thinking and acting as if it is separate. 

The result of this is that we never actually look at the foundation of our system which is the law structure, as all business conforms to the law. The law is thus what ‘set the stage’ for how we operate, at all levels of government, down to the individual level as well. Which would imply that if we want to really get to the heart of issues, such as unemployment, we’ve got to take a look at the very law system itself, to see what is not effective within it, that it is not directing us to effectively make enough jobs and to provide effective support for those who haven’t found a job, so that when we hear unemployment numbers, you don’t have to think about all the people that means that can’t afford to live properly, as you wouldn’t want to be one of those statistics.

This is also why so many businesses just don’t make it, which results in further job losses, because if people aren’t effectively employed, they can’t buy goods and services, which means that businesses don’t make enough to stay afloat. It’s a vicious cycle. But it’s even easy to miss this when we aren’t considering the bigger picture, if we are in an area that is doing well for instance, we might think everything is ok, for now, but miss the bigger picture of how everywhere overall things aren’t improving, and that since all our economies are interconnected, that does not bode well for anyone, even if their economy is stable for the moment. Because an individual economy doesn’t exist by itself – no man is an island, and even an island isn’t an island, from that perspective – our economies are all intertwined and dependent on each other, and therefore we need to consider the bigger picture and ensuring that all economies are stable and effective. 

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