Current Events > Seattle's minimum wage rose too much, caused loss in wages but not unemployment

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23532

This paper evaluates the wage, employment, and hours effects of the first and second phase-in of the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance, which raised the minimum wage from $9.47 to $11 per hour in 2015 and to $13 per hour in 2016. Using a variety of methods to analyze employment in all sectors paying below a specified real hourly rate, we conclude that the second wage increase to $13 reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs by around 9 percent, while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent. Consequently, total payroll fell for such jobs, implying that the minimum wage ordinance lowered low-wage employees’ earnings by an average of $125 per month in 2016. Evidence attributes more modest effects to the first wage increase. We estimate an effect of zero when analyzing employment in the restaurant industry at all wage levels, comparable to many prior studies.

interesting
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I didn't read the paper, but how are they accounting for just about everything in determining causation or even correlation. That's a really narrow timespan to evaluate
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I'm actually waiting for someone to send me the full paper myself, but I think the methods section is pretty dense so I'm not sure I could answer your question anyway.

It was shared with my by a PhD in labor economics who really cares about this stuff, though, so I think it's probably sound. He wrote this (http://www.epi.org/files/2014/importance-study-design-minimum-wage-debate-final.pdf)for the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, so I don't think it's some ideological bias either
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