By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is the second part of our 11 part Summer 2015 wage series. In this article we take a look at recent contract settlements and examine how those trends vary from recent previous years. Our view of 2013 and 2014 settlements and what we have so far from 2015 indicates that the Washington State public safety employee wages are a mirror of national wage stagnation. We see flat wage increases with little substantial real wage growth. Whether a growing economy eventually will accelerate these is something we’ll discuss later in this series.
