Minimum Wage | Research and Publications

Still Working Well: Washington's Minimum Wage and the Beginnings of Economic Recovery

01.02.2004 | Critics of Washington's groundbreaking minimum wage law have repeatedly pointed to our state's relatively high minimum wage as a cause of our higher than average unemployment rate. However, the data do not support a causal connection. The United States as a whole and Washington state have continued to lose jobs since the official end of the recession in November 2001, but Washington has lost jobs at a lower rate than the national average.| Read

Working Well in Washington: An Evaluation of the 1998 Minimum Wage Initiative

01.02.2003 | In effect for four years and through times of economic growth and decline, the minimum wage law has had a significant impact on the income of the state's lowest-paid workers and has had no significant impact on job or business growth. | Read

Increasing the Minimum Wage: Rebuttal to NFIB/WRB Anti-Minimum Wage Arguments

02.01.2001 | The Economic Opportunity Institute prepared this rebuttal in October 1998 in response to the position papers opposing Initiative 688 authored by the National Federation of Independent Business/Washington (NFIB) and the Washington Restaurant Association (WRA). (This rebuttal was prepared in October 1998 and updated in January 2001.) | Read