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posted by n1 on Thursday June 05 2014, @11:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the will-code-for-gold dept.

The NYT reports that in a unanimous vote, the Seattle City Council went where no big-city lawmakers have gone before, raising the local minimum wage to $15 an hour, more than double the federal minimum, and pushing Seattle to the forefront of urban efforts to address income inequality. "Even before the Great Recession a lot of us have started to have doubt and concern about the basic economic promise that underpins economic life in the United States," says Council Member Sally J. Clark. "Today Seattle answers that challenge." High-tech, fast-growing Seattle, population 634,535, is home to Amazon.com, Zillow, and Starbucks. It also has more than 100,000 workers whose incomes are insufficient to support their families, according to city figures and around 14% of Seattle's population lives below the poverty level. Some business owners have questioned the proposal saying that the city's booming economy is creating an illusion of permanence. "We're living in this bubble of Amazon, but that's not going to go on," says businessman Tom Douglas. "There's going to be some terrific price inflation."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:51PM

    by isostatic (365) on Thursday June 05 2014, @03:51PM (#51755) Journal

    Same problem affects the average person right now, but it's $10 an hour vs 50c an hour, so to the average person, who gives a crap if the dollar deflates.

    The big problems are
    1) People with savings lose out. Big whoop, they aren't contributing to society right now, and they have left society in a mess.
    2) Imports get expensive. Big whoop, means that joe sixpack finds out he actually afford a 60" OLED 3D 4K TV to replace his 3 year old 50" one.

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