Wapo: New Study on seattle minimum wage is bad news for liberals

[KingSweden]

Actually, the study found something that should interest liberals greatly. Though, it hasn't even been peer reviewed yet.



So the study concludes that the rise in the minimum wage ended up creating more higher wage jobs.

This is good news objectively, but does little to help low-skilled workers $15 minimums are supposed to help. (I'm agnostic on the matter personally. Think it's a wash either way)

[KingSweden]

The impression that I get from this report is that Seattle has been gentrifying so rapidly that its minimum wage law probably has not mattered much at all. It's a place that his increasingly limited room for minimum wage work and the people who do those job.

These findings would not be especially generalizable even if this were showing an obvious and smashing success for the minimum wage increase. Which success, arguably, this does show - i.e. high-wage jobs displaced low-wage jobs, albeit mostly for totally different reasons.

What we should be interested in asking, because it's less is obvious is how would a minimum wage increase affect a place that lacks a growing economy, that lacks high-end services, or that lacks a highly educated workforce? How would it affect a place on that is on the periphery of the national economy?

(Either way, reducing both employee- and employer-side payroll taxes on low-wage employment would be a better way to put more money in the pockets of the working power without making it more expensive to employ them.)

Yes!

[KingSweden]

Also, can't two different study methodologies (both reasonable in their own right) just produce different results?  Below the author of the Berkley study critiques the UW methodology.  Though I'm sure both could agree to disagree.

http://irle.berkeley.edu/files/2017/Reich-letter-to-Robert-Feldstein.pdf

I think I once remember reading a quote that was something like "You can get an economist to find any conclusion you like".  I'm sure there are so many conservative groups out there that could sponsor a study that shows Seattle is doomed. 

University academic studies produce conflicting results all the time.  It's kind of hard to make clear cut determinations of which one is "right" and which is "wrong".

yeah....about that...

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Christ. That's exactly the kind of step-on-rake nonsense that makes me glad Murray isn't running again