A 'very credible' new study on Seattle's $15 minimum wage has bad news
for liberals By Max Ehrenfreund June 26 at 6:01 AM
When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost
the city's minimum wage up to $15 an hour, they'd hoped to improve the
lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that
could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the
hike has had the opposite effect.
The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over
several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to
afford the increased minimums. They've cut their payrolls, putting off
new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study
found.
The costs to low-wage workers in Seattle outweighed the benefits by a
ratio of three to one, according to the study, conducted by a group of
economists at the University of Washington who were commissioned by
the city. The study, published as a working paper Monday by the
National Bureau of Economic Research, has not yet been peer reviewed.
On the whole, the study estimates, the average low-wage worker in the
city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum.
The paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum
wage. Many past studies, by contrast, have found that the benefits of
increases for low-wage workers exceed the costs in terms of reduced
employment -- often by a factor of four or five to one.
"This strikes me as a study that is likely to influence people," said
David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
who was not involved in the research. He called the work "very
credible" and "sufficiently compelling in its design and statistical
power that it can change minds."
Posted by Hugh
If they had listened to me they could have saved a lot of money and
min wage jobs.
Hugh
---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com