Up goes the minimum wage in Seattle, Washington, 20 states
Seventeen million American workers in 20 states and the District of Columbia will receive a higher minimum wage in the new year, with Seattle becoming one of 13 cities and counties to reach or exceed $15 an hour.
One state -- Nevada -- is putting off a decision until mid-2019.
The federal minimum wage remains stuck at $7.25 an hour, where Republicans in Congress have kept it for the past decade.
Increases used to be a bipartisan tradition. The last one was negotiated by Republican President George W. Bush and a Democratic-run Congress. Before that, the deed was done by Democratic President Bill Clinton and GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
With no action coming from Washington, D.C., we've done it ourselves in this Washington, and in both "blue" and "red" states across the country.
In Seattle, on January 1, the minimum wage for large employers -- those with more than 500 workers worldwide -- will go to $16 an hour. It will rise to $15 for small employers, who will be allowed to pay a $12-an-hour minimum if they contribute at least $3 an hour toward employee medical benefits.
Washington voters overwhelmingly passed Initiative 1433 in 2016, putting the state on a path to a $13.50 an hour minimum wage by 2020. On New Year's Day, the state's minimum wage will climb from $11.50 to $12 an hour.
The higher minimum wages are not arriving like dew in the early morning. Activists, in particular fast-food workers, have marched off the job, rallied and agitated for decent pay.
"The biggest wave of job actions in the history of America's fast food industry," as the New York Times described it, began in November of 2012 at a McDonald's at Madison Avenue and 40th Street in Manhattan.
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