07-02-2017, 08:59 PM
Of Course here is an article countering your post of the University of Washington study:
Here's what's wrong with a University of Washington study that found it hurt low-wage workers
6-27-2017
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, and since Seattle’s minimum wage increase has been larger at large businesses than at small ones
Second, the University of Washington team does not present enough data for us to assess the validity of its “synthetic control” in Washington — that is, the set of areas to which they compare the results they observe in Seattle. The Seattle labor market is not necessarily comparable to other labor markets in the state, and given some of the researchers’ implausible results, it’s hard to believe the comparison group they chose is an appropriate one.
The Berkeley researchers take a better approach. They construct the synthetic 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.
That doesn’t mean that nobody in Seattle will ever lose a job, of course, or that the University of Washington team’s research doesn’t merit further exploration. But it does mean that the Seattle minimum wage increase, like every minimum wage increase in American history, has lifted the wages of low-wage workers and been perfectly fine for the economy. Until you start seeing low-income people in Seattle and around the country taking to the streets to demand lower minimum wages, don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.
Here's what's wrong with a University of Washington study that found it hurt low-wage workers
6-27-2017
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, and since Seattle’s minimum wage increase has been larger at large businesses than at small ones
Second, the University of Washington team does not present enough data for us to assess the validity of its “synthetic control” in Washington — that is, the set of areas to which they compare the results they observe in Seattle. The Seattle labor market is not necessarily comparable to other labor markets in the state, and given some of the researchers’ implausible results, it’s hard to believe the comparison group they chose is an appropriate one.
The Berkeley researchers take a better approach. They construct the synthetic 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.
That doesn’t mean that nobody in Seattle will ever lose a job, of course, or that the University of Washington team’s research doesn’t merit further exploration. But it does mean that the Seattle minimum wage increase, like every minimum wage increase in American history, has lifted the wages of low-wage workers and been perfectly fine for the economy. Until you start seeing low-income people in Seattle and around the country taking to the streets to demand lower minimum wages, don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.