$15/hr as minimum wage affects stipends/salaries how?

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ratherbefishing

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Seattle just passed a raise in minimum wage to $15 per hour. That is about $31k per year at 40 hours a week with a couple weeks off. Notably this rate is above many grad student stipends as well as residents salaries (currently at about $9 or less per hour calculated out), both of whom work more than 40 hours. Any chance stipends and salaries go up (even just Seattle)?

As a side note, residents salaries have 40% less buying power than inflation adjusted resident salaries back in the 60s when wages were first set by the government. Sucks to work so much and get paid so little. No one cries for doctors to get paid more, but maybe we could piggyback on this minimum wage movement?

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A salary is contractual, meaning it is not calculated on any hourly basis (although there may be some legal minimum associated with it). I do not suspect a minimum wage has direct bearing on a salary contract. Does the minimum wage law in Seattle mention yearly salaries? In either case (resident and graduate student), it is complex as you are not only an employee, you are also a trainee. It is unlikely for salaries to change based on minimum wage laws based on our designation as trainee.
 
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No doubt that is not going to make any difference and good luck convincing your program. What about residents working supposedly only 80hrs a week, then by that logic should be paid 62K which they are not. Even if the state passed a law like that and they put pressure on the university with regards to graduate students and MD/PhDs they would just fanagle it so that your tuition remission was brought into the mix. Or more likely, they would just say grad students, residents, post-docs are all 'training' and therefore they aren't working and so the rules don't apply.
 
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