Washington state's minimum wage No. 1 in U.S.
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If you want a minimum-wage job, you're in the right state.
As of today, Washington's minimum wage will climb 18 cents to $6.90 an hour, tops in the nation.
The figure surpasses Massachusetts at $6.75 and stays ahead of California, which is jumping 50 cents today to $6.75.
While that's good news to the estimated 145,000 minimum-wage workers in Washington — where the average worker makes $17 an hour — it's not to struggling small businesses that employ them, said Roberta Pauer, the Employment Security Department's labor economist for the region.
"It's a hassle," said Kim Dean, co-owner of Sara's Coffee Shop, a 49-seat diner in Kent with six employees. "Business is slow because a lot of people got laid off, and the minimum wage keeps going up."
As a result, Dean said she may have to lay off someone, cut workers' hours and raise prices of menu items.
After the minimum wage went up three years ago, she raised the price of steak and eggs a buck to $5.99, and a BLT went up from $3.85 to $4.25. After the minimum wage went up again a year ago, she did away with free lunches for her employees.
"Now they pay half, I pay half," she said.
It is the 14th time the minimum wage has gone up in Washington since the Legislature enacted a law in 1959 to set a minimum wage, then $1.
In 1912, Massachusetts became the first state with a minimum-wage law, and now all but seven states — Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee — have followed suit. Three states have minimum wages lower than the federal level: New Mexico and Ohio ($4.25) and Kansas ($2.65).
The minimum wage in many states is $5.15 an hour, the same figure set by the federal government for federal employees and people working on projects that are paid for mostly with federal money. Some states make an exception for small businesses and allow them to pay a lower minimum wage.
The federal minimum wage was established in 1938 — at that time it was 25 cents an hour.
The state's relatively high minimum wage will likely attract job-seekers here, Pauer said. Washington also offers some of the highest unemployment benefits in the nation, maxing out at $496 a week. That's $220 a week more than what a minimum-wage earner here makes.
In a sort of trickle-up effect, other businesses that pay more than the minimum wage also may raise wages to attract and keep workers.
That happened at Dick's Drive-In earlier this year.
The five-restaurant Seattle chain, which opened in 1954, pays a starting wage of $8.25 an hour. Earlier this year, it raised the pay of most workers 25 cents an hour in anticipation of today's increase, general manager Ken Frazier said.
Seattle Times news researcher Sandy Freeman contributed to this report. Bill Kossen can be reached at 206-464-2331 or bkossen@seattletimes.com.