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SFU Thesis Template Files The Politics of Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage by Robyn Grant Craigie B.A. (Political Science), Simon Fraser University, 2013 Research Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Urban Studies in the Urban Studies Program Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Robyn Grant Craigie 2016 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Spring 2016 Approval Name: Robyn Grant Craigie Degree: Master of Urban Studies Title: The Politics of Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage Examining Committee: Chair: Patrick J. Smith Professor, Urban Studies and Political Science Peter V. Hall Senior Supervisor Professor and Director Urban Studies Anthony Perl Supervisor Professor Urban Studies and Political Science Eugene McCann External Examiner Professor Geography Date Defended/Approved: December 15, 2015 ii Ethics Statement iii Abstract Why did the City of Seattle pass a citywide minimum wage ordinance, increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour from the Washington state minimum wage of $9.47 per hour? This is an inquiry into the political workings of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage from both a policy perspective and a political activism perspective. I conducted an analysis of documents and public hearing videos from the City of Seattle and media documents on the ordinance to better understand the policy history surrounding the ordinance. I also conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with political actors involved in either activism or policymaking for the ordinance. I found that there were three crucial elements that worked together to create the Seattle minimum wage: Keynesian rhetoric, the election of City Councilmember Kshama Sawant, and political activism for a $15 minimum wage, with political activism working as a catalyst for the other elements. Keywords: keynesianism; minimum wage; $15; urban social movements; neoliberalism; Seattle iv Dedication To my family, for instilling in me the qualities that made me write this. v Quotation When the world the sun shines on is always new, how could everyday life be forever unchangeable, unchangeable in its boredom, its greyness, its repetition of the same actions? Henri Lefebvre vi Acknowledgements I would like to thank my senior supervisor Peter V. Hall for your guidance and your nuanced way of thinking. I can sometimes tend toward the general, and your precision helped immensely in getting to the core of my research and also seeing it from many angles. I would like to thank Karen Ferguson for a conversation we had during my first semester in the program. You told me that it is good to be critical, but that graduate school is about finding what is in an argument as much as what is not. This is a lesson that has been invaluable to my reading as well as my life in general. I would like to thank Paddy Smith for being with me from my undergraduate career all the way through my graduate studies. You are as much a pleasure to talk politics with as you are to shoot the breeze with, and with you the two are often indistinguishable. I would like to thank all of my Urban Studies colleagues. You have provided me friendship, support, and challenging ideas to keep me sharp. I look back fondly on our classes together, our studying, our book clubs, our chat groups, and our Portland and Seattle trips. Special thanks to Hazel and Natalie for keeping me on track near the end. I would like to thank my community in East Vancouver. I have lifelong friendships here that cannot be recreated. The neighbourhood made me who I am, and so it shares in my accomplishments. Finally, I would like to thank my family for always supporting me and being tremendous examples of what it means to go against the grain. I wrote this because of what you instilled in me. Special thanks to Miranda for our conversations on graduate school and other shared experiences. vii Table of Contents Approval .............................................................................................................................ii Ethics Statement ............................................................................................................... iii Abstract .............................................................................................................................iv Dedication ......................................................................................................................... v Quotation...........................................................................................................................vi Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... vii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ viii List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... x Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................... 1 1.1. Background .............................................................................................................. 2 1.2. Rationale for Study ................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2. Literature Review .................................................................................... 10 2.1. The Effects of Neoliberalism on Cities ................................................................... 11 2.1.1. Effects on Local Government .................................................................... 11 2.1.2. Effects on City Economics ........................................................................ 14 2.2. Urban Resistance to Neoliberalism ........................................................................ 16 2.2.1. Resistance to Neoliberalism ..................................................................... 16 2.2.2. Coalition Building ...................................................................................... 19 2.3. The Political and Economic Context of Seattle ...................................................... 21 2.3.1. Economic Context ..................................................................................... 22 2.3.2. Political Context ........................................................................................ 24 2.4. The Minimum Wage Debate................................................................................... 28 2.4.1. Economics of the Minimum Wage ............................................................ 28 Employment and Prices ......................................................................................... 28 Capital Flight .......................................................................................................... 32 2.4.2. Moralities of the Minimum Wage ............................................................... 34 2.5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 37 Chapter 3. Methodology ............................................................................................ 39 3.1. Document Analysis................................................................................................. 39 3.2. Interviews ............................................................................................................... 42 Chapter 4. The Seattle Citywide Minimum Wage Ordinance ................................. 44 4.1. The Living Wage Movement in the United States .................................................. 44 4.2. The San Francisco Citywide Minimum Wage ......................................................... 46 4.3. The Seattle Citywide Minimum Wage .................................................................... 49 4.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 55 viii Chapter 5. From Occupy Wall Street to the $15 Minimum Wage .......................... 56 5.1. The National Narrative ........................................................................................... 56 5.1.1. The Occupy Wall Street Movement .......................................................... 56 5.1.2. Fast Food Worker Strikes ......................................................................... 59 5.2. The Local Narrative ................................................................................................ 60 5.2.1. Living Wage Declination to Minimum Wage Adoption .............................. 63 5.3. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 65 Chapter 6. Local Debate on the $15 Minimum Wage .............................................. 66 6.1. The Debate in Media .............................................................................................. 66 6.2. The Debate in the Income Inequality Advisory Committee .................................... 72 6.3. The Debate in Public .............................................................................................. 78 6.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 84 Chapter 7. Conclusion .............................................................................................. 85 References .................................................................................................................
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