Washington raises minimum wage, Idaho border towns feel squeeze

MOSCOW, Idaho — James Randall lives in Moscow and goes to school at the University of Idaho. But for 30 hours a week, he crosses the border to work as a pizza-delivery driver in Pullman.

That's because Washington's minimum wage is more than $2 higher than Idaho's $5.15. And it just went up again Monday, from $7.63 to $7.93.

It applies to workers in both agriculture and nonagricultural jobs, according to the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries. And it's recalculated each year for workers age 16 and older, based on cost-of-living increases, and is expected to reach $8.14 by 2009.

"It's kinda hard to make ends meet," Randall said. "I'm just glad the state of Washington has tied the minimum [wage] to inflation. That way it's advantageous to everyone."

Maybe not everyone. Some businesses in Pullman say the steadily increasing minimum wage in Washington starts to make that Idaho border look a little more tempting.

"You'd like the wage to support families, but it's also difficult for a border town," said Pullman Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Fritz Hughes. "It's a double-edged sword. It's good for some folks, and on the other side, it's difficult for some small business."

Idaho's minimum wage has been at the federal level of $5.15 an hour for about 10 years. A state bill to increase the wage to $6.15 an hour — and mandate yearly increases tied to inflation, like in Washington — died in an Idaho House committee this spring because some lawmakers feared it would lead to higher prices, increase unemployment rates and reduce incentives for low-paid workers to improve themselves.

In Moscow, the city voted in August to pay its employees a "living wage" of $10.25 an hour. But that only applies to city employees, or those employed by a company that contracts with the city.

Hughes said he thinks the higher wage has put a damper on development on Pullman. The higher minimum wages translate into higher prices, he says — which can be tough, when there's a town with lower prices less than 10 miles away.

Lori Meyer, who owns Simply Tanning and Nails Spa in Pullman, said she doesn't mind paying her seven employees an extra 30 cents per hour, but if wages hit $9.50, she's going to have to cut back and raise prices.

"As a small business, it's going to catch up to me eventually," she said. "If it keeps going up, I'll have to even it out somehow."