Washington will raise its statewide minimum wage to $17.73 an hour on January 1, 2027, an automatic bump that hits Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, and other employers.
Entry-level pay across the Evergreen State is set for another mandated climb next year, and national restaurant chains are on the list of employers who must meet it. The U.S. Sun reported that the new floor will reach $17.73 an hour for most workers age 16 and older, a 60-cent increase from the current $17.13 rate.
That is a 3.5% bump. It takes effect January 1, 2027. Younger teens ages 14 and 15 move from $14.56 to $15.07 an hour under the same schedule.
Seattle goes higher still. The city’s local minimum wage is scheduled to rise 84 cents, to $22.14 an hour for all workers on the same date.
Washington law does not wait for lawmakers to pass a new bill each cycle. State rules require an annual cost-of-living adjustment tied to the federal Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, the government’s gauge of living costs for ordinary workers.
Officials recalibrate the figure each September. The new rate then lands every January 1. The 2027 increase follows that same track.
The coming adjustment will keep Washington as the state with the highest minimum wage in the country. The federal minimum remains $7.25 an hour and has sat there for more than a decade.
The pay rule reaches far beyond independent diners. The U.S. Sun named Texas Roadhouse and Olive Garden among the big eateries slotted to absorb the higher entry-level rate, along with retail giants Target and Walmart and other local businesses that hire at the bottom of the scale.
Food-service workers and other entry-level staff in Washington are the direct beneficiaries on paper. Employers, from national full-service restaurants to neighborhood shops, are the ones who must pen the larger checks starting New Year’s Day 2027.
No statements from Texas Roadhouse, Olive Garden, Target, Walmart, or Washington officials appear in the available reporting on the 2027 figures. The story is the statutory schedule itself: another automatic step up, already timed and measured.
At $17.73 statewide and $22.14 inside Seattle, Washington’s wage floors will sit more than double, and in the city roughly triple, the federal $7.25 baseline. That gap is not a one-year quirk. It is the product of a state law that ratchets pay upward every January by formula.
Workers 16 and older get the full $17.73 state rate. The separate teen track for 14- and 15-year-olds rises in parallel, just from a lower base. Seattle’s local rule covers all workers at the higher city figure.
The mechanism is simple and rigid. September brings the CPI-based calculation. January 1 brings the new paycheck math. Chains with locations in Washington, and the smaller employers beside them, adjust on the state’s calendar whether business is brisk or slow.
Washington already claims the top state minimum wage in the nation. The 3.5% step locked in for 2027 is built to keep that ranking in place.
When a state wires annual raises into statute and lets an index do the voting, employers do not get a pause button, only a larger number due every January.