By Claire Zillman
FORTUNE — When Washington State Governor Jay Inslee announced in his State of the State address in mid-January that he wanted to raise the state’s minimum wage by $1.50 to $2.50 an hour, it was notable mostly because, at $9.32 an hour, the state already has the country’s highest minimum wage.
That proposed hike came about a week after Seattle Mayor Ed Murray called for a $15 minimum wage in his city, and a few months after the city of SeaTac — home to Washington’s largest airport — passed its own $15-an-hour minimum wage. In January, Washington’s state house passed a bill that would guarantee workers paid sick leave, and a few weeks ago it introduced legislation that would require employers to provide workers with paid vacation time — the first ever state-level bill of its kind.
As resentment builds over the growth of low-wage jobs and a stagnant federal minimum wage, a wave of populist sentiment is inching across the country — state by state — in some places leaving higher minimum wages in its wake.
But Washington state, it seems, has remained lengths ahead of those trends, serving as a beacon for workers seeking higher pay, decent benefits, and workplace protections.
And although Washington’s recent wage and benefit initiatives have sparked interest beyond its borders, its progressive tendencies are historically rooted and are as much a trademark of the state as Seattle’s Space Needle and Mount Rainier.
“It’s in our DNA,” says Gael Tarleton, a state representative who sponsored the bill for vacation time. James Gregory, a professor of history at the University of Washington, puts it this way: “We think of Washington state as if it’s the upper left corner of the United States — both geographically and politically.”
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