Hillary Clinton

A year in, ‘the sky is not falling’ from Seattle’s minimum-wage hike

The city’s multistep minimum-wage law, heading to $15 for all by 2021, has lifted up some low-income earners, shaken up some business models and stirred up controversy while prompting similar moves elsewhere.

Yigzaw began earning $13 per hour Jan. 1 at his 40-hour-a week job at a parking garage in South Lake Union. When he started working there 10 years ago, he was making only $8 per hour.


“I’m a low-income person,” he said. “Even 25 cents makes a difference.”

Only a year into Seattle’s journey toward a $15 minimum wage, local economists tracking the impacts say it’s too early to make conclusions about how the city’s minimum-wage “experiment” is going, but so far, critics’ dire predictions of mass job loss have not come true