Peninsula Daily News News Services
OLYMPIA — Washington’s minimum wage will not increase next year.
The state Department of Labor and Industries says it will remain at $8.55 an hour because inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, did not increase for the past 12 months. It decreased about 2 percent.
Washington still has the highest minimum wage in the nation.
This is the first year there has not been an increase since voters approved an initiative in 1998 to adjust the minimum wage with inflation.
That’s good news to small businessmen like Scott Dickinson of Vancouver who owns eight KFC restaurants.
He told the Vancouver Columbian newspaper he had to cut his staff by 10 percent after last January’s minimum wage hike.
