If you live in Washington state, the minimum wage is increasing on January 1, 2024.
Working with a nanny? It’s important to make sure that you are paying your nanny at least minimum wage. This is especially important for families working within a nanny share.
Don’t live in Washington state but want to see if the minimum wage is increasing in your state? Often, changes to minimum wage laws take effect on January 1st. It’s simple! Head on over to Google and search for “(your state) minimum wage” to check.
If you aren’t currently a member of our community, we’d love to have you join. Nannies can join our community totally FREE and our Family/Parent memberships start at only $8.99/month!
Here’s what families and nannies in Washington state need to know:
The minimum wage is increasing in Washington state!
Beginning January 1st, minimum wage will increase 3.37% from $15.74 per hour up to $16.28 per hour.
This state minimum wage increase will apply to any worker aged 16 and up, and this increase is directly related to the increasing cost of housing, food, medical care, etc., that we’ve all been experiencing lately.
What’s interesting is that Washington state has the highest minimum wage of any state in our country.
The federal minimum wage requirement has remained unchanged since 2009 at $7.25.
And here’s another interesting fact: there are three cities in Washington that specifically have higher minimum wage requirements.
Those three cities are Seattle, SeaTac, and Tukwila.
Seattle’s minimum wage is $18.69 per hour for most workers.
For SeaTac, that amount is $19.69 per hour, and for Tukwila, the hourly rate is $18.99 per hour.
How will this affect families who employ nannies?
In much of Washington state, nanny pay rates are much higher than the minimum wage rate requirements.
For most families that employ nannies, they’re already going to be meeting those requirements because nanny pay rates are much higher than the state-required minimum rate.
Nanny share families will definitely need to make sure they are being compliant.
As of January 1st, any family who employs a nanny in a nanny share situation will need to make sure that they are paying their nanny at least $16.28 per hour.
That means the minimum that a nanny share nanny would be making is going to be over $32/hour when both families are paying.
Now in Seattle, Tukwila, or SeaTac, that amount is going to be different.
In Seattle, each family will need to make sure they’re paying their nanny share nanny $18.69 per hour, and of course, if you’re in Tukwila, each family would need to be paying a minimum of $18.99 or in SeaTac, $19.69 per family per hour.
And families, if you are working with a payroll company, the payroll company should be aware of these changes.
However, they will not make a rate change for you unless you connect with them.
It’s important that if these changes do affect you, then you connect with your payroll company about this.
And nanny share families, we do recommend also circling back on that contract, making the needed updates so that everything is accurate.
How do these minimum wage laws affect nannies?
Nannies, you will need to have a conversation with your employer about these minimum wage rate requirements if the family doesn’t come to you about them first.
And again, most nannies in Washington won’t be affected, but the nanny share nannies are really going to want to pay attention to these changes.
And nanny share nannies, we also recommend taking a look at the contract, making sure that any changes are reflected and updated within that contract.
All right, that is it for now on how the new Washington state minimum pay rate requirement laws will impact families and nannies as of January 1, 2024.
We know that it can be hard to discuss topics of pay rates with your employer, so be sure to approach the conversation with your annual review in mind when it’s time to ask for those changes.