Washington voters approve $13.50 minimum wage and paid sick leave

Story: 2016 C.E.  |  Last updated: January 1, 2016

On Election Night 2016 C.E., Washington state voters delivered a decisive verdict: the state’s lowest-paid workers deserved more. Initiative 1433 passed with nearly 60 percent of the vote statewide — and by a striking 72–28 margin in King County — setting in motion a phased minimum wage increase that would reach $13.50 an hour by 2020 C.E., along with a new statewide paid sick leave requirement.

What the vote showed

• Washington minimum wage: I-1433 passed with roughly 60 percent of the statewide vote, raising the wage floor from $9.47 to $11 on January 1, 2017 C.E. — the first step in a four-year phase-in.
• Paid sick leave: Beginning in 2018 C.E., employees would earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 40 hours worked — a first-ever statewide mandate in Washington.
• Inflation adjustment: After reaching $13.50 in 2020 C.E., the minimum wage would be indexed to inflation annually, preventing future erosion of purchasing power.

A raise four years in the making

Washington already had one of the higher state minimum wages in the country going into the 2016 C.E. vote. But advocates argued it still wasn’t enough to keep up with rising housing and living costs, particularly in the Puget Sound region.

The campaign behind I-1433, called Raise Up Washington, raised about $4.4 million — primarily from labor unions, Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, and a California-based group called The Fairness Project. The opposition coalition raised roughly $85,000, drawing support from the Washington Restaurant Association, the Washington Retail Association, and the Washington Farm Bureau.

The fundraising gap reflected the broader political dynamics. Organized labor had been pushing for years to close what they described as a widening gap between wages and basic costs. Business groups, meanwhile, argued that while Seattle’s economy could absorb higher labor costs, rural and small-town employers faced a different reality.

Workers and businesses respond

For the roughly one million workers expected to benefit from the paid sick leave provision alone, the passage of I-1433 meant something specific and practical: the ability to stay home when ill without losing a day’s pay. That had long been treated as a workplace perk rather than a baseline protection in Washington.

Supporters of the initiative framed the vote in unambiguous terms. Carlo Caldirola-Davis, campaign manager for Raise Up Washington, said in a statement: “When voters filled in their ballots, they were clear — in Washington state, we want an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top.”

The No on I-1433 coalition accepted the result while flagging concerns about implementation — particularly around industries like construction and rural communities where margins are tighter and workforce dynamics differ from urban centers.

Lasting impact

Washington’s initiative became part of a broader national trend in 2016 C.E. — a wave of state-level ballot measures raising minimum wages as federal action stalled. By setting the wage floor at $13.50 and tying it to inflation, the state built in a protection that flat dollar amounts don’t provide: wages that don’t quietly lose value over time.

The paid sick leave provision proved particularly consequential when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived less than four years later. Workers in states with paid sick leave mandates were more able to stay home while ill — a public health outcome that had been one of the initiative’s explicit arguments.

Washington’s model also influenced subsequent state and local campaigns. The combination of a phased wage increase with an inflation index, alongside mandatory sick leave, became something of a template for ballot measure advocates in other states looking to build durable, rather than symbolic, protections.

Cities including Seattle and SeaTac, which already had higher local minimums and more generous sick leave policies, were permitted to keep their more protective rules. The initiative set a floor, not a ceiling.

Blindspots and limits

The debate over I-1433 surfaced a genuine tension that didn’t disappear after the vote: Washington is an economically diverse state, and a uniform statewide wage floor affects a diner in rural Okanogan County differently than a tech-company cafeteria in Seattle. Studies on the employment effects of Seattle’s earlier minimum wage increases produced contested findings, and the picture for smaller employers in lower-cost regions remains genuinely complex.

The paid sick leave provision also carried carve-outs and phase-in timelines that meant some workers — particularly in agriculture and seasonal industries — faced a longer wait for full protections. And while the inflation index prevents future stagnation, it doesn’t address the gap between the current wage floor and what housing and childcare actually cost in the state’s most expensive areas.

Read more

For more on this story, see: The Seattle Times

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• The Good News for Humankind archive on economic justice

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