On Monday, while the Seattle City Council was taking up another hot-button issue, the King County Council got into the minimum wage game, voting 5-4 along party lines to set a wage floor for King County employees and contractors with service contracts worth $100,000 or more.

While the exacts of the approved ordinance are convoluted, it sets a schedule identical to Seattle’s $15 minimum wage law, and the move is being touted as a win by progressive groups like the Alliance for a Just Society and Washington Community Action Network. In a press release issued before the vote, the Alliance called the legislation “among the stronger county-level ordinances in the country,” and “on par with Seattle’s recently adopted $15 minimum wage.” Alliance Director Jill Reese said the ordinance “is a modest step in the right direction.”

Once King County Executive Dow Constantine signs the ordinance into law, the move will mainly impact contractors who enter into service contracts with the County after Jan. 1 of next year, requiring them to pay the minimum wage prescribed under the approved schedule (which, again, is identical to Seattle’s … meaning fairly intricate and confusing). Given the fact that nearly all county employees already make in excess of $15 an hour, the ordinance will have little impact there.

King County Councilmember Rod Dembowski was one of three sponsors of the bill, along with Larry Phillips and Larry Gossett. According Dembowski’s chief of staff, Kristina Logsdon, “It’s really difficult to know how many employees,” the law will ultimately impact, since it applies to future contracts. That said, Logsdon is able to say that if the law had already been in place, it would impact “over 1000” current contracts.

According to Ben Henry, a Senior Policy Associate at the Alliance for a Just Society, today’s action was mostly about sending a message.

“This is the King County Council making a statement,” Henry tells Seattle Weekly. “While this is a step in the right direction, even a wage floor at this historic of a level still falls short of providing basic needs. … We see it as a continuation of the living wage conversation.”

A report issued in August by the Alliance for a Just Society and Washington Community Action Network found that a full-time worker in King County needed at least $17.37 an hour to meet basic needs, and for an adult with two children it rises to $34.46 an hour.