The Federal minimum wage isn’t relevant in the vast majority of States that set their own minimum wage. This is a good thing; the US is too geographically and economically diverse to have a single minimum wage. The minimum wage in expensive places like Seattle is the median wage in States with weaker economies and lower costs of living.
Also note that state/city minimum wage is often higher than federal minimum wage, so using only federal minimum wage stats is not a full picture. e.g. Washington's minimum wage is ~$14.50/hr, so nobody in that whole state is making federal minimum wage, but I doubt anybody is living well on "double the federal minimum wage" in most of the state.
Many localities in the US have instituted higher minimum wages. In DC, the minimum wage is $14, and I can assure you that a burger and fries is not $20, the local McDonald's have not automated, and they seem to be doing fine.
But the point is moot because whether or not minimum wage is $8.00 or $15.00 we've offshored the major aspect or our labor to other countries. You aren't wrong, but it's moot. You're literally making an argument that we could have a $15.00/hr minimum wage everywhere in this country because most labor exists in China or other less developed nations.
You're right, but that's not exclusive to Seattle.
words missing from this article: 'delivery', 'outsource', 'manufacturing', 'offshore', 'manual labor'.
Seattle is the headquarters of starbucks (low-wage high-labor coffee shipped from overseas) and amazon (manufactured goods shipped from wherever). They can raise the minimum wage because a big piece of their economy is already happening elsewhere.
Even those numbers are highly misleading since half the states in the US (containing a strong majority of the population) have minimum wages that are higher than the federal minimum wage.
Higher prices are being driven by institutional investors using leverage and free money from the fed. That’s happening nationwide. It’s not being driven from below, in this particular case. Also, Seattle has had a minimum wage above 15 per hour since 2017.
Edit: 2017 for larger businesses, 2019 for mid size, 15 per hour universally as of 2021
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