The city of Seattle made history on Monday when it
raised the minimum wage.
The highest in the nation by far.
Five years ago, Seattle became the first city
to pass a $15 minimum wage.
I think it's pretty awesome since I benefit from it.
A rising tide raises all boats?
15 in Seattle is just a beginning,
We have an entire world to win. Solidarity.
[Crowd cheering]
When the law passed,
we went to Seattle to interview people about it.
It's a good thing that we are leading the
way for the rest of the country.
I wish that it was all over the place, not just Seattle.
Increasingly, it is!
New York State taking steps towards
a $15 and hour minimum wage.
Other states and lots of cities have copied Seattle.
California governor Jerry Brown signed
a $15 minimum wage bill.
But now the results from Seattle are in.
Some people are being paid more.
They are the winners.
But for many people who wanted jobs…
The increased minimum wage is
having an opposite effect.
costing thousands of jobs and
actually hurting low income workers.
You see it on this graph.
The green line tracks the number of new jobs
created in Washington State.
The red line is new jobs in Seattle.
Once Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15,
entry-level job growth stalled.
It’s really presented by minimum wage advocates
as a win-win.
It's a win-win for employers. It's a win-win for workers.
And, there are no negatives.
But there are negatives, says Erin Shannon
of the Washington Policy Center.
She points to stores like this one
where the owner used to hire kids and train them,
but once Seattle raised the minimum,
she stopped hiring beginners.
[cash register]
The politicians, in Seattle especially,
have no sense whatsoever about what it
means to small businesses like us.
Most people we interviewed said
the politicians are right.
Yes, some people will go out of business.
Others will take their place.
It's something we need to do.
It’s as if they’ve never learned about
supply and demand.
Minimum wage actually hurts my chances
of getting employed.
This 20-year-old understands the effect better
than Seattle’s politicians did.
Raising the minimum wage causes
increased unemployment.
Rigel Nobel-Kosa is one of the $1500 winners
of a video contest done by my Classroom charity.
My name is Dillon Hodes and this is my WAGE RAGE.
Dillon Hodes won the high-school video contest.
He mentioned a friend who worked at Kroger
until her store raised its minimum to 12 dollars
She was getting paid $12 an hour,
but slowly but surely,
they started cutting her days, her hours.
She was regulated to only working on Sundays.
And that's because she was young and inexperienced.
I feel the big thing-
She wasn't worth $12.
She wasn't worth $12 to Kroger.
She's worth the world to me,
but she wasn't worth $12 to Kroger.
I learned things from their videos,
like how many wealthy countries
have no minImum wage
Countries such as Iceland, Norway, Sweden
and Switzerland.
Nobody knows that.
No, no, and especially with Switzerland,
Which has much lower unemployment than America,
partly because Switzerland has no minimum.
It stops us from actually getting a job
Esther Rhodes won the high school essay contest.
Her essay pointed out that America’s first
minimum wage laws were racist.
At the time-- blacks were often paid less,
but they were more likely to be employed than whites.
The whites were like,
"Hey, they're getting all the jobs. This isn't fair."
Congressman Allgood said he hoped
the min wage would stop:
“cheap colored labor in competition with white labor.”
So although Americans think the minimum
was invented to help needy people
It was meant for the opposite,
to keep the poor and the minorities from getting jobs.
And today it still keeps
entry-level workers from finding work.
But the politicians don’t understand the downside.
Lift up the minimum wage to at least $15 an hour
Raising the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour
[cheering]
It’s easy to see why a higher minimum wage
is so popular.
On the surface, you think oh, this is a great idea
Because it raises some people’s wages.
Everybody deserves a living wage
But while it helps some, it harms many others.
Especially young people,
who now may not be offered their first job.
I'm 14, it'd be very difficult for me to find a job,
my labor wouldn't be worth $15 an hour.
If only politicians were as smart as those kids.