Final Analysis: Reality Bites

As i write this, the seattle seahawks have just disclosed that Russell Wilson has agreed to a four-year extension of his contract to play football for them. As with all big-time sports contracts, terms of this deal were conveniently revealed to the media, indicating Wilsons average annual salary will be $21.9 million.

As you read this, the Seahawks have begun their preseason schedule, so the 12th Man is already in full-throated support of Wilsons escape from the National Football Leagues minimum-wage penury. (He made $662,434 last season and was scheduled to make a meager $1.54 million this season before the contract renegotiation.)

No doubt lurking among those who are relieved that DangeRuss is one of the highest-paid players in pro football are a few people still steamed about Seattles minimum-wage push. It stands to demographical reason. For every 10,000 Seahawks fans who believe Wilson is being fairly compensated, there has to be a corporate honcho, a small-business owner, even a rank-and-file laborer who believes were progressing far too recklessly on the livable wage front.

And thats just silly. Yet I still see the occasional Facebook rant claiming that anyone who has run a business knows Seattles move toward a $15-per-hour minimum wage is foolhardy and irresponsible. Well, Ive run a business with 35 employees and several million dollars in annual sales and I consider the citys phased-in approach to a higher minimum wage to be measured and thoughtful.

Will it pinch the business owner? Sure. The ramp-up to $15 an hour is fraught with anxiety-producing considerations and decisions. The impact on labor costs is enormous, especially for small businesses. The higher minimum wage could actually turn cities like Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles into cloistered islands where entry-level jobs go to die. Or it could create a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats scenario that prompts cities of all sizes to bypass the frustrating consequence of legislative torpor and embrace the art of the possible.

Either way, anyone with good sense knows the minimum wage ought to be higher than it has been for decades, especially if the term minimum is to be considered something other than the least I can pay my employees without being called Scrooge.

By some economic measures, such as the overall growth of income in the nation, the minimum wage ought to more like $20 or $21 an hour. As a society, we could actually get there in a decade or so if we really, really wanted to.

Good businesspeople make it happen. Bob Donegan, president of Ivars Inc., is following the citys phased-in minimum wage ordinance at Ivars fast-food seafood restaurants, but at its full-service Ivars Salmon House he has already raised wages to at least $15 an hour, eliminated tipping and increased menu prices by 21 percent. Early indications are that employees love it, diners love it, and Ivars is doing just fine, thank you.

Still, many business owners get crankier than Donald Trump in a no-bullying zone if its suggested that someone working 40 hours a week should make enough money to live well enough above the poverty line to feed ones children and still have money left over to put something in the bank. (Imagine that!) They throw up their hands and complain that it will ruin them.

Im betting that anyone whos creative enough to start and run a successful business will find a way to make it work. Remember, no one outside the NFL is asking for Russell Wilson money, just for fair and reasonable treatment.

In a nonfantasy, non-NFL world, that seems completely realistic.

John Levesque is the managing editor of Seattle Business magazine.