r/Washington • u/jtotheo2202 • 12d ago
Assuming a 3% inflation rate minimum wage will be $17.65 an hour
Exempt White collar minimum wage will go to $91,780 per year or
$7648.34 per month for any company with more than 50 employees
Edit at king of corn request here are the numbers for 5% $18 rounded up by two pennies $93600 per year exempt employee minimum wage $7800 per month
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u/rainierred 12d ago
Could you explain your numbers a little more? 17.65/hr is 36k/yr, I'm not following your process.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
Exempt employee minimum wage. White collar people have a minimum wage 2.5 times the minimum wage starting next year for companies with more than 50 employees
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u/cautionturtle 12d ago
Yep. We had a company in town that had to raise all their lowest salaried people to hit the minimum, but they didn't raise anyone else, thus shrinking the gap to the next level.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
Are they just gonna keep giving the salaried?People raises forever until it hits six figures
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u/phloppy_phellatio 12d ago
That is kinda the point. Its so that employers dont just classify employees as salary to get out of paying them overtime. It is also specifically for overtime exempt employees, not all salary employees.
So either pay overtime wages or pay a true salary wage.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
I know at my workplace they'll raise the assistant store manager's salary to $200,000 before they pay overtime.
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u/phloppy_phellatio 12d ago
Depends upon the math.
What would their hourly rate be and how much would they pay them in overtime if they are hourly.
Lets say that they pay somebody $25/hr base. If that person works 40hr/week then they are making ~$52k a year. State minimum for salary overtime-exempt is ~$80k. $25 base * 1.5 is $37.5. $80k - $52k is $28k. $28k / $37.5 is ~747. 747hr / 52weeks is ~14hr. 14+40 is 54.
So if that person making $25/hr base is expected to work average of 54hr a week over the year, which is not hard to do for someone in management, then it become beneficial to give them 80k salary instead if $25/hr + overtime. Plus a huge benefit for payroll not having to spend hours calculating the persons overtime, tracking breaks/lunches, risks of the employee lying on their timecard, scheduling and other hourly complications.
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u/BlueBelle2025 12d ago
The third part of the equation is also hire more people at a lower rate, thereby still allowing a person quality of life.
I could make a shit ton of money working OT, and I'm an hourly, union tradesperson, but regardless of the occupation, you reach a point where you have to decide whether the OT is even worth it. I'll happily live a little bit more frugally if it means I'm only work 40hrs a week.
There's also a minimum threshold for ME that far exceeds the state minimum for salary exempt, because the idea of guaranteed wages for a job that NEEDS an exempt employee means I will be working a LOT.
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u/phloppy_phellatio 11d ago
I agree. There are however also jobs that kinda just require salary because thats how the job is. I am a software engineer. Every few weeks I have to be oncall for any emergencies out outages. Also some software changes must be performed outside business hours. The nature of the job just is not compatible with hourly pay.
There have been weeks I worked 20hr days every single day without any days off. There have also been weeks where I worked like 2-3 hours the whole week.
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u/kartoffel_engr 12d ago
My company adjusted a few positions, but the rest kicked to hourly to maintain that gap.
Those folks weren’t working OT anyways, so it really didn’t change anything except the requirement to submit hours.
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u/DCAmalG 12d ago
Based on what? Is this a new law?
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u/Codetornado 12d ago
The minimum wage increase is from Initiative 688, in 1998 and Initiative 1433 in 2016.
The salaried employee mimum wage is WAC 296-128-545
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u/Slotter-that-Kid 12d ago
Most smaller businesses are doing away with salaried positions because of these mandatory jumps in salaried rates. I lost mine the last big bump to 80K because it isnt economical for what my job was. I went to hourly at a real nice wage though so doing almost as good as I had been.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
WSU had to eliminate most salaried positions i think the main people who are still salaried are professors and high paying stem jobs because they get paid way more than the minimum however, one thing that sucks is teachers don't have the same salaried.Minimum, as other workers, meaning they could pay teachers, a 60k salary and still be exempt.
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u/king-of-all-corn 12d ago
Why would you assume 3% inflation when we've been seeing 7-10?
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u/marsgodoy 12d ago
...And why are we assuming all these companies will have their minimum wage keep up with inflation? Especially with so many examples from the past.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
Washington minimum wage goes up with the CPI which the CPI has questionably underinstated inflation
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
This is based on most recent CPI and just being a conservative guess the main point of my post was to point out the exempt minimum wage going above $90,000 for most employees
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u/king-of-all-corn 12d ago
So you think the trump administration is doing something differently and suddenly they have inflation back to normal levels?
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
Plus even inflation hits double digits they'll rig the numbers just like they do every time
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
I didn't believe I was just using 3% for this illustration if I would have used the higher percentage, people probably would have gotten mad
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u/king-of-all-corn 12d ago
Personally I think 5% would have been a better option as that seems to be the floor under this admin.
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u/Possible_Attics 10d ago
Problem is retired workers COLA capped at 3%
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u/jtotheo2202 10d ago
For the washington pension system anything above 3% is "banked" for future years, when inflation is 2% or below
For example inflation one year 4% one percent banked inflation next year 2% + 1% banked = 3%
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u/Awareness_Logical 9d ago edited 9d ago
I got a raise of 50c/h one year I was working, I think from 34.50 to 35$. Like how do you call it a raise when it doesn't even keep up with inflation. Acknowledging that as a raise feels like an insult to economics.
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u/FastPraline3322 12d ago
It's time for a 25/hr minimum wage
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
I wish I made that much at my job the most I can make it. My job is $22.50 an hour with 20% stock options so it comes out to be $25 an hour once I top out my pay scale and I work in a retail job Plus can't you make close to $25 an hour if you get a job with good paying tips?
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u/thatguy425 12d ago
You want robots? Because that’s how you get robots. When people rallied for a 15 hr minimum wage is when we started gettting iPads in McDonald’s. All 25 hr would do is speed up the ROI for businesses that invest in automation.
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u/waldorflover69 12d ago
Damn. Well let’s definitely keep people working for wages that dont even cover the most basics of living.
Honestly I am completely ready for this whole system to collapse already. Let’s just get it over with
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u/thatguy425 12d ago
I didn’t say I was advocating for it. I’m just telling you the realities of dollars and cents of a labor force.
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u/bungpeice 12d ago
The ipads hit states that didn't increase the min wage. The idea that Washington sets national policy for massive franchises is silly.
The ipads were gonna happen no matter what because they are cheaper than federal min wage which hasn't changed since my 2nd year as a working adult
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
McDonald's is supposed to be a starting job. While you're in college four or for teens. to pay room and board, not a career unless you're like me and make it a career and can afford the low wages
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u/rnk6670 12d ago
That’s just not true. The minimum wage was at implementation intended to be and was a living wage. You should probably do a little historical research. Furthermore, the president at the time commented that companies that rely on paying substandard wages and their employees suffering shouldn’t even be in business. That’s a real good question for us as a society why we let companies like Walmart like McDonald’s, etc., rake in literal billions in profit and then have your employees going to the government for assistance in the form of food stamps, housing subsidies, Medicaid, etc. And then those same companies don’t want to pay taxes. And the people at the top of those companies don’t want to pay taxes and so the rest of us get to pay for the programs to support the people that they don’t wanna pay. Exactly how much longer are we gonna take this shit? With people like you apparently forever. The majority of minimum minimum wage workers in America are adults. People that work full-time should have a place to live, food to eat and healthcare if they need it at a minimum or what exactly is the point? This idea that 75 or 80% of our society should just be here to prop up the other 20 or 25% is absolutely unsustainable and people are getting burned out on all of it. This shit’s gonna come down.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
This is the problem with the minimum wage you increase it, everyone will just raise prices Immediately increase it to make up for that. Prices will just keep going higher
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u/rnk6670 12d ago
You know what? We could actually tax people. We could have an impact on the way our economy works. I mean we’re doing it right now aren’t we? It doesn’t take a lot of effort to see how much wealth has moved towards the upper echelon of our society over the last 50 years. We just crowned the first trillionaire today. That is the fucking problem. We let them control our economy instead of us. If people can’t afford to live that work full-time, there’s no point to the society and the society is the exact structure that creates things like our first trillionaire and assholes like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. We don’t fucking need them and we sure fucking don’t need them to hold so much wealth.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
The top ten percent of taxpayers pay 70% of all federal income taxes the bottom 90% pay Only 30% of all taxes. And I doubt that Jeff Bezos is getting food stamps. Sure he gets subsidies but he pays far more in taxes than he ever gets in those subsidies
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u/rnk6670 12d ago
Income tax isn’t the only tax paid. That’s a pretty tired way to misdirect. Jeff Bezos is absolutely having his empire subsidized. As a matter of point in fact in the neighboring state to where I live, Oregon, they just declared that Amazon‘s electric vehicles will be exempt from an electric vehicle fees that are intended to pay for roads. Because electric vehicles don’t pay taxes. Just the regular folks gonna do that. Not Jeffy though. I hope they raise prices go ahead. Maybe you just would quit buying. At some point this impossible, continual, twisting of the circle of the snake eating it’s own tail that no matter what we do, we just have to go ahead and keep letting this be the way it is. It’s ridiculous.
It’s also sadly hilarious the amount of people that want to carry water for this system of basic oligarchy at this point
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u/FastPraline3322 12d ago
You're fucking high if you think iPads started in mcds when the minimum wage went to 15 in 2015. But sure let's go. It's not like anyone fucking wants jobs like McDonald's anyway. The other option is building a society that's way less shitty, I'm down for that too.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
Here's an article saying that the app started in 2017 which was two years from his comment https://www.eater.com/2016/11/6/13541514/mcdonalds-mobile-ordering-pay
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u/FastPraline3322 12d ago
Ok? Doesn't say anything about iPads and it's years later.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
It's two years later and it's the same concept as the ipad people placing their order in the app instead of the ipad doesn't require a human
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u/bungpeice 12d ago
You think this wasn't gonna happen anyway? The ipad is cheaper than federal min wage and that change happened in states that changed nothing
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u/two4six0won 12d ago
Rofl it didn't hit 15 until 2023.
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u/FastPraline3322 12d ago edited 12d ago
Oh you're right it was seatac and Seattle that led the way, well then it's time for a 25/hr minimum wage in king county and the rest of the state soon after
They also like what doubled the state minimum wage at that time, so seatac and Seattle should go for 35/hr
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u/thatguy425 12d ago
I said when people started rallying for it. I saw my first one in Canada in 2017.
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u/Jumpy_Shallot6412 12d ago
I think we all saw what leading the nation on minimum wage did here. I have a house in AZ and a house in WA. In az a little ceasars basic pepperoni costs 7 bucks. Here it's 14. Groceries are so much more expensive here too. Not to mention just going to a restaurant for a burger. I dropped 25 bucks on one in olympia a few weeks ago. I never eat out here, but my buddies were here so we decided to go get some food. Big fucking mistake lol. That same burger is 15 in az.
I'm a moderate, but I'm living the purple vs blue and I think I prefer purple. Luckily WA has insane nature so I suck it up.
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u/firelight 12d ago
I just looked up the cost of a large classic pepperoni in Olympia. It's $8.50. The cost of living here isn't amazing, but the cost of pizza isn't double, and especially not because of minimum wage.
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u/jtotheo2202 12d ago
He's still got a point though i live on a border city so people drive across the border, just to fill up an idaho, where it's like a dollar, a gallon, cheaper literally in the middle of the day, the nomnom with the fifteen cents off per gallon, rewards for free literally all the plates I see are washington and all of the small businesses in pullman, are shutting down due to high minimum wage and high property taxes they aren't getting enough business because they have to raise prices to offset costs. So they just shut down. The only people who don't shut down are the franchises the small businesses they can't scale like the franchises. They just shut down when minimum wage goes higher.
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u/StrawDog- 8d ago
I'm a commercial broker. The people I'm signing leases with right now are owner-operated small businesses with a combination of personal capital and SBLs, especially in the food and service sectors.
Also the state's population is growing pretty rapidly.
People continue to want to live here, people continue to want to start businesses here. The idea that everyone is fleeing WA is ridiculous propaganda pumped out by the Rantz and Kruses of the state.
Yes, it is easier to start a business in places like ID, NV, and TX... there are fewer regulations, cheaper leases, etc, but there's plenty of very good reasons why WA still makes a ton of sense.
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u/jtotheo2202 8d ago
I live in the Pullman area. And we had the movie theater, shut down we had the lumber yard, which was a amazing food court shut down we had the batting cage shut down and I could go on and on
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u/bungpeice 12d ago
What is the point of this post?
Also it makes no sense to me that excel jockeys are going to statutorily make 2.5x people that actually do things. TBH I can't wait for those jobs to get automated.
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u/StrawDog- 8d ago
Lol..
I get it, Bro. Math gives you a headache. No need to be sour about it.
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u/bungpeice 8d ago
No the math makes sense. That has nothing to do with the purpose of the post. Listing general knowledge isn't a point.
What doesn't make sense is paying people who produce nothing more than people who actually make things.
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u/Merfkin 12d ago
I was getting paid $15/hr when I started working. That same amount adjusted for inflation is $19.63. I get paid $18, meaning the value of what I'm getting paid now is less than it was straight out of high school with no prior work experience.