a very poor idea, it'll cause unemployment

seattle isn't a closed economy so it might not be properly reflected in the numbers (e.g. if a bunch of people who get laid off move away then employment % will go up) but it won't be beneficial for the people

it doesn't really make sense to talk about a "living wage" because that implies that the prices set by apartment landlords and grocery store chains should be something that's taken into account by other corporations when setting wage for their workers; the only thing that makes sense to me is to pay people precisely how much their work is worth, not more or less

obviously people still need things to eat and a roof over their heads, in which case you can take care of that with progressive income taxes and government aid, which is perfectly fine and reasonable, it's not like people actively want the poor to starve

it's just not sensible to set a minimum wage and to hope that that does the trick, the labor market is also, well, a market, and if you set a price floor then the quantity sold (i.e. the number of people hired) will go down just as it would for tomatoes or cds or w/e

that's obviously a simplification of the situation but it's still relatively valid

also i'm not sure it makes sense to say that some companies are greedy because all companies are greedy, at least the ones who survive; i mean the fundamental purpose of a corporation's existence is to facilitate collective money-making. it's not really a sensible complaint because desire for profit is literally the raison d'etre of companies.

that certainly doesn't mean that humanitarian policies are bad things, in fact i think it's pretty commonly accepted that for most industries it's very profitable in the long-run to treat your skilled workers well (with high wages, nice benefits, perks, so on and so forth) because they they're happier, making them more productive, and they also have less of a reason to leave. i just don't think it makes sense to criticize greed in companies.