The state of Washington is a long way off from the District of Columbia, otherwise known as Washington DC. And the state is also a long ways off from being affected by all of the federal minimum wage talk going on in the federal capital. That’s because whereas the federal minimum wage is currently $5.15 per hour, the state of Washington’s minimum wage is now at $7.93 per hour. That is above each of the three levels of the proposed two-year federal minimum wage increase that is being considered by both the House and the Senate of the U.S. Congress.
As I am sure you have heard many times—from me, other bloggers here, and from every news source from Seattle to Syracuse—the federal minimum wage law now under consideration by both the House and the Senate would increase the federal minimum wage three times over the course of the next two or so years. The first increase would occur 60 days after the President signs the bill into law, which would put the new federal minimum wage at $5.85 per hour.
The wage increase after that would occur a year later, when the federal minimum wage would go up to $6.55 per hour. Check back a year after that, and you would see that the new federal minimum wage would take the pay rate as high as $7.25 per hour, which is where the federal minimum wage would stand as of 2009.
Well, the Washington state minimum wage is already higher than all three of those levels, at $7.93 per hour. It is set at that level for all workers in the state, pretty much, over the age of 16. Other minors age 14 and 15 can get paid as little as 85 percent of that minimum wage total.
