Update on State Minimum Wage Implementation and Revised Wage Schedule

Many thanks to Human Resources and Western’s Student Employment Center for ensuring that over 1,800 hourly-paid students earning less than the minimum wage were increased to $11 per hour, effective Jan. 1, 2017.

To recap, Washington’s minimum wage increased from $9.47 to $11.00 per hour effective Jan.1, 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.

Options for updating student employment pay ranges are being prepared for review to incorporate these large and successive minimum wage increases.  The new ranges will still provide supervisors with the flexibility they need to assign the individual wage rates of student employees based on job scope, appropriate work experience and documented market and retention considerations.

The structure of the student employment wage schedule may differ substantially from what Western has used in the past, as a result of planning to take the incremental minimum wage increases into account.  Thank you for waiting for this to be resolved before making changes to existing wage rates.   We anticipate that the new student employee wage scale will be approved and published by mid-March, 2017, perhaps sooner.