RENTON, Wash. — King County Elections has certified a ballot initiative organized by Raise the Wage Renton to raise the city's minimum wage to about $19 an hour for the February 2024 Special Election.
The Renton City Council is set to vote on the proposed ordinance to raise the minimum wage on Dec. 4.
The coalition is now organizing for voters to urge the council to pass the measure instead of holding a special election. They say this would save "taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars."
Volunteers were sought by the city to serve on pro and con committees to address the potential positive and negative impacts of the ordinance. If the issue goes to a public vote, those committees will draft statements that would appear in the voters' pamphlet.
If passed, the Renton minimum wage would begin July 1, 2024. A December approval of the measure would also give notice to businesses earlier, the coalition says.
Currently, the minimum wage in Renton is Washington state's minimum wage of $15.74 an hour. The group has collected over 17,000 signatures to certify the initiative measure.
The minimum wage increase is supported by Renton City Councilmember Carmen Rivera and other local elected government officials, such as King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay and State Senator Bob Hasegawa.
Businesses with less than 15 employees or gross revenue of less than $2 million are exempt in the measure, which would ensure Renton's minimum wage stays "comparable to employees in the nearby cities of Tukwila, SeaTac, and Seattle."
The 2024 hourly minimum wage in Tukwila will be $20.29, Seattle will be $19.97 and SeaTac will be $19.71. If passed, the measure would make Renton's minimum wage over $19 per hour and continue to go up alongside those cities in the following years.
The Washington state minimum wage was also increased from $15.74 to $16.28 an hour for 2024, while the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has stayed the same since 2009.
Read the full initiative on the Raise the Wage Renton website.
