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$15/hr Min Wage - We told you so

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  • $15/hr Min Wage - We told you so

    Seattle has had the $15/hr minimum wage for a while now. The net result? Workers are taking home an average of $125/month LESS than before. Why? Because businesses have cut their hours to maintain profitability.



    A New Study Has Some Bad News for Backers of a Minimum Wage Hike
    Katie Reilly
    Jun 26, 2017

    Seattle's move a few years ago to gradually increase the local minimum wage to $15 an hour has caused low-wage workers to lose money due to reduced working hours, according to a new study.

    The study by researchers at the University of Washington found that earnings for low-wage employees fell by an average of $125 per month in 2016 because the ordinance caused a 9% decrease in the number of hours worked. Meanwhile, hourly wages for low-wage jobs increased by about 3%, according to the study. The study was commissioned by the city itself and released Monday.
    http://fortune.com/2017/06/26/seattl...-policy-study/


  • #2
    There was a methodologically-better study published last week on the subject from the University of Berkeley. It found only positive results from the Seattle minimum wage increases.

    Latest study: Seattle’s wage law lifted restaurant pay without shrinking jobs:

    Seattle’s minimum-wage law has led to higher pay for restaurant workers without affecting the overall number of jobs in the industry, according to a new study from the University of California, Berkeley.

    Indeed, employment in food service from 2015 to 2016 was not affected, “even among the limited-service restaurants, many of them franchisees, for whom the policy was most binding,” according to the study, led by Berkeley economics professor Michael Reich.


    Seattle’s higher minimum wage is actually working just fine:

    Here's what's wrong with a University of Washington study that found it hurt low-wage workers...

    Two years after Seattle began increasing its minimum wage... Seattle’s economy is as strong as ever. The Seattle unemployment rate in April, for example, was 2.6 percent, the lowest it has been in nine years. Yet the release of a new study this week from a group of researchers at the University of Washington has brought opponents of minimum wage increases out of the woodwork again.

    ...The [University of Washington] study’s findings are out of step with a large body of research pertinent to Seattle’s minimum wage increase, and the study has important limitations. Another recent study without those limitations, from Michael Reich, Sylvia Allegretto and Anna Godoey at the University of California at Berkeley, is more consistent with other research and shows that Seattle’s minimum wage is having its intended effects...

    So what did the University of Washington team find, and why isn’t it a big deal?

    Using confidential payroll data from the Washington Employment Security Department, the researchers compare employment, hours and wages of workers in Seattle and various other parts of Washington both before and after Seattle began raising its minimum wage. They argue that Seattle’s minimum wage increase reduced the total hours worked by Seattle’s low-wage workforce by about 9 percent. They also contend that the increase raised low-wage workers’ wages by only about 3 percent, implying that the costs of this wage hike outweighed its benefits for these workers.

    But the idea that raising the minimum wage has a much larger effect on hours than on wages strains credulity, especially since, as economists Ben Zipperer and John Schmitt have noted, Seattle’s increase “is within the range of increases that other research has found to have had little to no effect on employment.” The study also finds that the minimum wage caused large employment and hours gains in higher-wage jobs, which suggests that its “methodology fails to account properly for the booming Seattle labor market during the period studied.” It’s not entirely clear why the University of Washington team gets such a weird result — since their data isn’t public, we can’t check it — but it’s worth noting at least two important issues with their study.

    First, their data exclude workers at businesses that have more than one location; in other words, while workers at a standalone mom-and-pop restaurant show up in their results, workers at Starbucks and McDonald’s don’t. Almost 40 percent of workers in Washington state work at multi-location businesses... In earlier work, in fact, the University of Washington team’s results were different depending on whether these workers were included in their analysis; including them made the effects of the minimum wage look more positive.

    Second, the University of Washington team does not present enough data for us to assess the validity of its [control group]...

    The Berkeley researchers take a better approach. They construct the... control in their study using an algorithm that matches Seattle with counties across the United States that are similar in terms of population size and a variety of economic characteristics. They use a publicly available data set — the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) — and include multi-location businesses in their analysis. They find much more plausible estimates of Seattle’s minimum wage increase on worker wages — each 10 percent increase in Seattle’s minimum wage is associated with a 2.3 percent increase in wages at limited-service restaurants in their study, for instance — and no statistically significant employment effects.
    "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
    "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
    "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by Starlight View Post
      There was a methodologically-better study published last week on the subject from the University of Berkeley. It found only positive results from the Seattle minimum wage increases.
      Sorry Star, but the Berkley study only included restaurant workers. There are a number of industries besides food that pay some workers minimum wage, and the Washington study included them. So, while it may be a positive for some food service workers, it is a negative for other industries that don't respond as well to general economy booms. And acting like these 2 reports are contradictory is sloppy.
      That's what
      - She

      Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
      - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

      I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
      - Stephen R. Donaldson

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
        Sorry Star, but the Berkley study only included restaurant workers. There are a number of industries besides food that pay some workers minimum wage, and the Washington study included them. So, while it may be a positive for some food service workers, it is a negative for other industries that don't respond as well to general economy booms. And acting like these 2 reports are contradictory is sloppy.
        But another study about Seattle's minimum wage, released last week, reached different a conclusion. A team at the University of California, Berkeley looked specifically at the food services industry and found that, while wages increased, employment rates did not change significantly.

        "Employment in food service, however, was not affected, even among the limited-service restaurants, many of them franchisees, for whom the policy was most binding," the Berkeley study said — a finding that is more consistent with past research on the minimum wage.

        Neither study has yet been formally peer-reviewed, the New York Times reports.
        That's from the same article cited in the OP. And that article itself claims that the results are contradictory. With the rider that neither study has yet been peer reviewed.
        1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
        .
        ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
        Scripture before Tradition:
        but that won't prevent others from
        taking it upon themselves to deprive you
        of the right to call yourself Christian.

        ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

        Comment


        • #5
          Star, your source is just an opinion piece that admits it doesn't even have the data to work with, so I think that it is nothing but a politically motivated hit piece.


          The Washington Study looked at low-wage workers from all segments of the economy while the Berkley study only looked at low-wage restaurant workers. The Washington study also had access to the number of hours worked by low wage workers where the Berkley study did not.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by tabibito View Post
            That's from the same article cited in the OP. And that article itself claims that the results are contradictory. With the rider that neither study has yet been peer reviewed.
            Source: http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/26/news/seattle-minimum-wage-15/index.html



            The two studies come to different conclusions, but don't necessarily contradict one another.

            The study from Washington looks at low-wage workers in Seattle across all segments of the economy, while the Berkeley report looks only at Seattle's low-wage restaurant employees

            © Copyright Original Source

            That's what
            - She

            Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
            - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

            I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
            - Stephen R. Donaldson

            Comment


            • #7
              It should be legal to hunt minimum wage workers for sport.
              Actually YOU put Trump in the White House. He wouldn't have gotten 1% of the vote if it wasn't for the widespread spiritual and cultural devastation caused by progressive policies. There's no "this country" left with your immigration policies, your "allies" are worthless and even more suicidal than you are and democracy is a sick joke that I hope nobody ever thinks about repeating when the current order collapses. - Darth_Executor striking a conciliatory note in Civics 101

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Meh Gerbil View Post
                It should be legal to hunt minimum wage workers for sport.
                There is a story that a Russian Czar did that in England once. Entirely understandable, given that he didn't know the meaning of "pheasant"
                1Cor 15:34 Come to your senses as you ought and stop sinning; for I say to your shame, there are some who know not God.
                .
                ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛
                Scripture before Tradition:
                but that won't prevent others from
                taking it upon themselves to deprive you
                of the right to call yourself Christian.

                ⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛⊛

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                  There is a story that a Russian Czar did that in England once. Entirely understandable, given that he didn't know the meaning of "pheasant"
                  I didn't expect this from you.

                  +1 for surprise
                  +1 for clever

                  You've won the internet for today.
                  Actually YOU put Trump in the White House. He wouldn't have gotten 1% of the vote if it wasn't for the widespread spiritual and cultural devastation caused by progressive policies. There's no "this country" left with your immigration policies, your "allies" are worthless and even more suicidal than you are and democracy is a sick joke that I hope nobody ever thinks about repeating when the current order collapses. - Darth_Executor striking a conciliatory note in Civics 101

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Meh Gerbil View Post
                    It should be legal to hunt minimum wage workers for sport.
                    It IS legal to hunt gerbils for sport.

                    0000000000000efhw.jpg

                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Meh Gerbil View Post
                      It should be legal to hunt minimum wage workers for sport.
                      it isn't?

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                        it isn't?
                        It is, but you only get paid minimum wage to do it.
                        Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                        But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                        Than a fool in the eyes of God


                        From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                          It is, but you only get paid minimum wage to do it.
                          They ARE hunted, by employers. "Hey guess what? we are going to pay you $15/hour!!!" then "Psych!! we are only going to give you 5 hours a week!"

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                            Star, your source is just an opinion piece that admits it doesn't even have the data to work with, so I think that it is nothing but a politically motivated hit piece.


                            The Washington Study looked at low-wage workers from all segments of the economy while the Berkley study only looked at low-wage restaurant workers. The Washington study also had access to the number of hours worked by low wage workers where the Berkley study did not.
                            Sparko you know a close minded Anti Intelletual like Starlight can't be bothered to look at the methodology used in studies of this sort. He'd rather continue looking like a lazy fool.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by tabibito View Post
                              There is a story that a Russian Czar did that in England once. Entirely understandable, given that he didn't know the meaning of "pheasant"


                              and... GROAN!


                              The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

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