Minimum wage on the way up

KFC worker Andrea Parker prepares frozen biscuits for baking at the Vancouver-based chain’s Hazel Dell restaurant. Parker earns a minimum wage of $8.07 per hour, which will increase to $8.55 per hour Thursday. (Troy Wayrynen/The Columbian)

They serve fast food, ring up retail purchases, and work in Washington’s farms and fields.

Starting Thursday, the state’s lowest-paid workers will get a 48-cent raise, the second-largest annual increase since a 1998 voter’s initiative that required the yearly adjustment.

Washington’s minimum wage — already the nation’s highest — will increase from $8.07 per hour to $8.55 per hour on Jan. 1. It is adjusted each year according to the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers. The index increased 5.9 percent during the 12month period ending in August, compared to a 1.8 percent increase during the same period in 2007, according to the Washington state Department of Labor & Industries.

The 2009 wage hike comes at a difficult time, according to some business owners who say the year-long recession already has them struggling to keep their heads above water. Their minimum-wage workers say they are battling against the same fragile economy.

Some say the increase will barely help.

“Something is better than nothing, but I wish the raise could be a little bit higher,” said Andrea Parker, an employee at a KFC restaurant in Hazel Dell.

A mother of three children, ages 6, 2 and 9 months, Parker is the main breadwinner for her family. Her fiance, Kenneth Olinger, was laid off from his construction job earlier this year.

On the other hand, KFC owner Scott Dickenson said sales are off by about 10 percent at his eight-restaurant KFC chain, which is based in Vancouver. The price of chicken — KFC’s main menu item — has risen by 50 percent.

“Our industry has already been hit pretty hard,” Dickenson said, adding that he is reluctant to increase menu prices for fear of alienating cash-strapped customers.

“In this environment, I don’t see how we can pass it all onto the customer,” he said.

Fast food, agriculture and retail businesses employ the majority of the state’s minimum wage earners, said Elaine Fischer, an L&I spokeswoman.

Fischer said about 2.5 percent of Washington’s full-time jobs pay the minimum wage, a figure arrived at by adding up all the part-time hours worked statewide and converting the figure to its full-time equivalent.

The total equals about 56,947 jobs that pay minimum wage in Washington.

However, the minimum wage increase will affect a much larger group of part-time workers, Fischer said.

For example, Jerry Dobbins employs about 200 workers a day at his Woodland berry farm through the summer harvesting season. The farm employs just a fraction of those workers year-round.

“Everybody has to make the minimum wage,” Dobbins said.

Minimum wage increases make it more difficult for his business to compete with off-shore producers that sell to the same fruit processing companies, Dobbins said.

“I can’t go to the processor and ask for more money because of my costs,” Dobbins said. “It’s a very tough time to be in this business.”

In Oregon, which has the nation’s second-highest minimum wage rate, the minimum wage will rise to $8.40 per hour on Jan. 1, a 5.3 percent increase over the 2007 rate of $7.95 per hour.

California’s minimum wage is $8 per hour.

In Idaho, minimum wage workers are paid the federal minimum wage, which went from $5.85 per hour to $6.55 per hour on July 24. It is scheduled to increase to $7.25 per hour in July 2009.