The Minimum Wage: Looking Across the Washington-Idaho State Line
Jared Bernstein pointed this out to me six months ago:
For $7.93 an Hour, It's Worth A Trip Across the State Line By TIMOTHY EGAN: Just eight miles separate this town on the Washington side of the state border from Post Falls on the Idaho side. But the towns are nearly $3 an hour apart in the required minimum wage. Washington pays the highest in the nation, just under $8 an hour, and Idaho has among the lowest, matching 21 states that have not raised the hourly wage beyond the federal minimum of $5.15.
Nearly a decade ago, when voters in Washington approved a measure that would give the state's lowest-paid workers a raise nearly every year, many business leaders predicted that small towns on this side of the state line would suffer. But instead of shriveling up, small-business owners in Washington say they have prospered far beyond their expectations. In fact, as a significant increase in the national minimum wage heads toward law, businesses here at the dividing line between two economies -- a real-life laboratory for the debate -- have found that raising prices to compensate for higher wages does not necessarily lead to losses in jobs and profits. Idaho teenagers cross the state line to work in fast-food restaurants in Washington, where the minimum wage is 54 percent higher. That has forced businesses in Idaho to raise their wages to compete.
Business owners say they have had to increase prices somewhat to keep up. But both states are among the nation's leaders in the growth of jobs and personal income, suggesting that an increase in the minimum wage has not hurt the overall economy. ''We're paying the highest wage we've ever had to pay, and our business is still up more than 11 percent over last year,'' said Tom Singleton, who manages a Papa Murphy's takeout pizza store here, with 13 employees. His store is flooded with job applicants from Idaho, Mr. Singleton said. Like other business managers in Washington, he said he had less turnover because the jobs paid more.
By contrast, an Idaho restaurant owner, Rob Elder, said he paid more than the minimum wage because he could not find anyone to work for the Idaho minimum at his Post Falls restaurant, the Hot Rod Cafe. ''At $5.15 an hour, I get zero applicants -- or maybe a guy with one leg who wouldn't pass a drug test and wouldn't show up on Saturday night because he wants to get drunk with his buddies,'' Mr. Elder said...
