In recent years there has been a national debate over the minimum wage. Come Election Day, voters in Washington state will decide not only whether to raise their state’s minimum wage, but also whether the state should require that workers receive paid sick leave.

What the Initiative Does

Initiative 688 would raise the state’s minimum wage gradually from its current level of $9.47 per hour to $13.50 by 2020. The wage would increase to $11 per hour in 2017, followed by hikes to $11.50 in 2018 and $12 in 2019, before reaching $13.50 in 2020.

It would also require employers to offer their workers with one hour of paid sick leave for every forty hours they work beginning in 2018, which could also be used as time to care for family members.

In Favor

People deserve to earn a living wage for the work that they do and raising the minimum wage gradually will help more attain that level of security. Additionally, paid sick leave is critical in enabling workers to put their health first without worrying about job security and allowing it to be used to care for family members is helpful for those with children or elderly relatives.

Opposed

Minimum wage hikes lead to increased unemployment among people who have fewer skills, like teenagers, and can be especially difficult for small businesses and companies in rural areas to manage. Paid sick leave is a nice benefit, but it shouldn’t be mandatory for employers to offer it and workers should only be able to use it for themselves or immediate family.

In-Depth

The minimum wage debate in Washington state has already led to increases at the local level. In 2014, Seattle decided to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour over a period of three-to-seven years. Sea-Tac had decided to do the same the prior year and Tacoma chose to pursue a $12 per hour minimum wage in November 2015.

The federal minimum wage is currently set at $7.25 per hour and was raised to that level in the summer of 2009, but Washington is among the 29 states plus the District of Columbia which have set their minimum wages above the federal level. There are also several bills currently in Congress to raise the federal minimum wage that you can find here, here, and here.

Only five states mandate that workers in their states receive paid sick leave from their employers — California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Vermont. Connecticut became the first state with such a requirement in 2011. At the federal level, there’s a bill that would require all employers to offer paid sick leave.

Washington state voters will find this initiative on their ballots in November because its supporters submitted 360,000 signatures requesting that it receive a vote of the people. The secretary of state’s office certified that at least 246,372 of those signatures were valid.

Tell your reps

Does Congress need to raise the federal minimum wage and impose a national requirement that businesses offer workers paid sick leave? Or do such policies burden businesses and keep less skilled workers out of jobs?





— Eric Revell