Opinion: Seattle Minimum-Wage Hike a Two-Edged Sword

Seattle’s proposed $15 minimum wage would give a well-deserved raise to underpaid social-service workers but could have the parallel effect of squeezing charities’ finances and forcing job and program cuts, a Seattle Times columnist writes.

Jonathan Martin notes that while city nonprofit leaders publicly back Mayor Ed Murray’s wage proposal, many privately fear the impact of higher labor costs unless local and state governments significantly raise human-services spending, an outcome the columnist calls unlikely.

“The near-poverty wage scale of the nonprofit human-services sector is the best argument for Seattle’s radical $15-wage proposal,” Mr. Martin writes. “But it also presents the biggest potential trade-off, because raising their wages might very well mean cuts in services to the poor and vulnerable.”

See a Chronicle article about the dilemma the minimum-wage fight poses for nonprofits squeezed by state funding.