OLYMPIA — Republican Liz Pike of Camas warned her colleagues in the House on Tuesday raising the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour would rob young people of opportunities to work jobs where they could develop lifelong skills.
But despite protests from Pike and other Republicans, the Democratic-controlled state House approved raising the state’s minimum wage — already the nation’s highest — to $12 an hour over the next four years. The 51-46 vote, which was along party lines, sends to the Senate the bill to add a series of 50-cent increases to the $9.47 state hourly minimum wage.
The bill drew extended debate in the Democratic-controlled House before the vote, with Democrats rejecting a series of Republican amendments before voting to approve the bill.
“There is a cold chill running through this chamber today,” said Pike, who spoke on the floor against the measure.
Democrats argued that many minimum-wage earners are adults.
“If you play by the rules, work full time, you shouldn’t have to make the choice between rent and food,” said Rep. Jim Moeller, D-Vancouver.
Other Democrats said that a minimum-wage increase would boost the state’s economy by giving low-income workers more money to spend in their communities.
“This really is about strengthening the middle class,” said Rep. Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, the House majority leader. “It’s about making our communities stronger.”
Republicans countered that House Bill 1355 would cut profits and lead to higher prices and fewer jobs. Some businesses could be forced out of state or into closure by the increased cost of hiring Washington workers, several Republican critics of the bill said.
Rep. Matt Manweller, R-Ellensburg and the assistant minority floor leader, gave an impassioned criticism of the bill as failing to recognize basic economic principles. If it costs more to pay workers, he said, companies will hire fewer workers.
“How can we craft laws if some goods and services are subject to the law of demand and others are not?” he said. “Or is it, Mr. Speaker, that labor stands alone as the only good on the planet that is absolutely inelastic, because that’s what I’ve heard today?”
Under Washington’s current law, the minimum wage is adjusted every January with inflation. The Employment Security Department said this year’s minimum wage hike affected more than 67,000 workers. In December, the most recent month available, Washington had a resident labor force of 3.5 million people, with an estimated 220,500 of them unemployed.
By an identical 51-46 party-line vote, the House also approved a bill Tuesday to require Washington companies with more than four employees to offer at least one week a year of paid sick leave.
