Seattle Raises the Minimum Wage to $15 (Video)

By a 9-0 vote, the Seattle City Council on Monday approved a bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, making Seattle the first major city in America to take such an action. Beginning April 1, 2015, the legislation will phase-in a $15 per hour minimum wage annually over 3 to 7 years, depending on employer size.

Starting April 1, 2015 companies with more than 500 employees have three year to gradually increase pay for their minimum wage employees to 15 dollars an hour. Companies with fewer workers will have seven years to do so.

Socialist Council member Kshama Sawant tried to make last minute changes to the plan including phasing in the wage earlier but she was shut down.

Sawant said., “Seattle is going to be the place with the highest minimum wage in the country. It is incumbent on Seattle leadership to vote for the interest of workers so we set the right precedent.”  

She also said, “ there are more people competing for the same jobs, obviously teenagers lose out, people with less experience lose out and so the solution to that is not to condemn them further to low wages but actually bring them on part with everyone else...”