Seattle Raises Minimum Wage To $15. Will Hike Tilt Senate Balance?

Seattle's new minimum wage sets a standard for big cities. "The City Council here went where no big-city lawmakers have gone before on Monday, 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. The vote, economists and labor experts said, accentuates the patchwork in wages around the country, with places like Seattle -- and other cities considering sharply higher minimum pay, including San Diego, Chicago and San Francisco -- having economic outlooks increasingly distinct from those in other parts of the nation. Through much of the South, especially, the federal minimum of $7.25 holds fast." Kirk Johnson in The New York Times.

Will Seattle's hike spread? Depends. "The agreement came together with remarkable speed because Seattle Mayor Ed Murray appointed a committee of labor, business, and community leaders to hash things out on their own with a firm deadline....The looming deadline for everyone was to head off a battle of ballot initiatives in the fall....Not every state has the type of binding ballot proposals that posed a real threat if talks had collapsed....Seattle also lacks much in the way of mega-retailers and major fast-food chains, so the largest national companies weren't involved in negotiating the compromise....Don't forget that Seattle is quite progressive, too....So many factors converged to make Seattle a trailblazer that its path will be tricky to follow." Karen Weise in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Charts: The decreasing value of the minimum wage, visualized. Philip Bump in The Washington Post.

Background reading: Focus of minimum wage debate goes local. Ricardo Lopez in the Los Angeles Times.

How the minimum-debate could tilt the Senate control battle. "Democrats who are trying to get an initiative raising the minimum wage on the ballot in Arkansas tell me they have now collected more than the requisite number of signatures -- which, if certified, could boost turnout for Dem Senator Mark Pryor, possibly helping determine control of the Senate in this fall's elections....A minimum wage ballot initiative could give Pryor a turnout boost among core voter groups who tend to drop off in midterms, and any single race could sway the battle for the Senate....Dems hope it will give core voters a reason to vote amid a bad national environment." Greg Sargent in The Washington Post.