January first of last year, the minimum wage in Washington state had been increased to $15.74/hr. As known, inflation has upped the price on many things making it more difficult to afford necessities. While the world continues to move forward, it starts becoming incredibly necessary for society to adapt. Although the increases have failed to keep pace with the living costs and rising labor, more than 20 states in the United States have provided additional increases, Washington being one of them. The minimum wage in WA is now $16.28/hr and students looking for jobs are beginning to take advantage of it.
Due to the increase, many already working high school students have gotten small raises making their pay worth working for. Others looking for work will now have some motivation to.
Samantha Sparrow, a Junior at Tahoma High School has recently gotten a raise at her local job in Maple Valley. We first asked how she felt about the raise, she said, “It made me pretty happy in the moment since I will be making a slight bit more money in the future” We next asked if the raise increased how much money she was getting through her paychecks, Samantha says, “I expected a lot more than what I ended up getting, It was a very small increase.”
Kate Davis, another Junior at Tahoma High School worked over the summer with $15.74/hr at a glove warehouse, we asked how she felt about the pay she was getting, she said “It felt low compared to the work that was being done and how much my friends were getting payed.” Next we asked how she would have felt with the increase, she said “I would be very pleased since that is a way better pay for the work I was doing.”
Although the minimum wage didn’t go up a lot, getting paid over $16/hr is a lot more than enough for many highschool students and people with beginner jobs local to Maple Valley, possibly giving people a boost of motivation to work more hours and work harder.
Onto cons about this, the minimum wage may increase next year but it increasing this much could result in less of a chance to get a future raise, with many people starting to work with less money to be able to give people raises.
