Do you supervise a student employee? Here's what you need to know about the new minimum wage

December 9, 2016

As you may know, Washington’s minimum wage will increase from $9.47 to $11 per hour effective Jan. 1, 2017, as a result of the passage of Initiative 1433.  Thereafter, the minimum wage will increase to $11.50 in 2018, $12.00 in 2019 and $13.50 in 2020.  Beginning with 2021, the minimum wage will be adjusted with inflation.  The impact is institution-wide, warranting detailed analysis and policy review.

Although the minimum wage increase serves as welcome news for many of our student employees, the turnaround time requires relatively quick evaluation and implementation for determining next steps to address the pending, incremental minimum wage increases.

A few important points as we move forward with implementation:

  • Thanks to Human Resources, you will not need to file any authorizations or paperwork to ensure that hourly-paid students earning less than the minimum wage are increased to $11 per hour effective Jan. 1, 2017.  HR will take care of it. 
  • The student employment wage schedule will be evaluated prior to making further changes to the wage ranges.  The past schedule addressed the overall low wages and importance of ensuring adequate pay for our student employees.  Now that we are facing significant minimum wage increases over the next several years, the wage scale needs to be re-evaluated with consideration of the new minimums.
  • Work study awards for the 2016-2017 academic year will not change.  Work study students who will receive a wage increase beginning January 1 may need to work fewer hours to avoid exceeding their work study awards.  Please work closely with your work study students to avoid inadvertent overages.
  •  The standard work study award for 2017-2018 will be increased to support a typical 12 hour work week.  The Student Employment Center will continue to invite employers to request their prior work study employees back and consider making adjustments to work study awards to fit specific employer needs and adjust individual student awards as funds allow.
  •  Departments who employ students with departmental (non work study) funds must also carefully consider their budget constraints when scheduling student employees for winter and spring quarters.

Whether the University will be able to provide budgetary support for the wage increases is under review.  I will update you as soon as I can.

Thanks for all you are doing to help Western students not only earn wages to defray educational costs and debt, but develop on-the-job skills and positive work attitudes that launch them into successful careers.