Human Resources

January 1, 2019 Minimum Wage Increase

Effective January 1, 2019, the UW’s minimum wage will increase from $15.45 per hour to $16.00 per hour per the City of Seattle schedule. This process will be managed centrally with changes implemented by batch upload in the Integrated Service Center (ISC) in early January after the 12/31/2018 payroll has been calculated. Employees will see the increase on their 1/25/19 paycheck.

This wage increase applies to staff and student positions, including both job codes 10875-Student Assistant (Seattle & Bothell campuses) and 11836-Student Assistant-Non-UW Student as well as hourly workers in job codes 10886-Reader/Grader, 10887-Tutor, 10868-Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, and 10869-Undergraduate Research Assistant. This also applies to job code 11863, Temporary Staff – Helper.

(Note: An exception for job code 10888-Student Assistant-UWT is detailed below.)

Exception for UW Tacoma: UW Tacoma is following the City of Tacoma minimum wage schedule, but only for student hourlies. As of 1/1/19 all UW Tacoma students assigned to job code 10888-Student Assistant-UWT (Tacoma campus) will need to be paid at least the City of Tacoma $12.35 per hour minimum for this job profile. The City of Tacoma has additional minimum wage increases scheduled as follows:

  • January 1, 2018 — $12.00 per hour
  • January 1, 2019 – $12.35 adjustment based on the rate of inflation*
  • January 1, 2020 – if the City of Tacoma minimum will be less than $13.50 it will adjust to the state minimum of $13.50.

*This rate is unofficial until approved by the Tacoma City Council, which is expected no later than the end of November 2018.

After the payroll calculation for the pay period ending 1/15/2019 there will be a post-audit check to find any employees paid below the new minimums.

Please plan for the budgetary impact of the new pay range.

Additional information about student employee pay and classification is available at:

http://hr.uw.edu/comp/student-employees/.

Departments may initiate discretionary adjustments for classified employees within the revised pay range based upon equity, longevity, merit, market conditions, recruitment difficulties, or salary compression with other employees receiving minimum wage adjustments.

Questions regarding the content of this communication may be referred to Human Resources Compensation at uwhrcomp@uw.edu