Live data from Hacker News

A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

washingtonpost.com

1–10 of 235 posts

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#4
post #2

"employment overall did not change" "The number of workers making over $19 an hour increased abruptly" This is the bad news.

No, this is the bad news:

> 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.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#5
>> to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations both inside and outside of Seattle in their calculations.

I read this to mean that the study therefore would exclude employers such as Seattle-based Starbucks, Seattle-based Amazon, Seattle-based Costco, Seattle-based Nordstrom, McDonald's, etc. Based on that reading, it seems like quite a leap to draw any conclusions from this data.

Am I reading this incorrectly?

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#7
post #2

"employment overall did not change" "The number of workers making over $19 an hour increased abruptly" This is the bad news.

the number of hours worked is dropping, that is bad. plus the need for low wage skill sets is dropping, that is bad too.

total payrolls have fallen to where some are impacted more than a hundred dollars a month, loss.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#9
Looks like the "credible" report is an approximation of a series of guesses and omissions. Measuring economic impact of almost anything is difficult but this one seems more vague than usual. If you want to discuss overall impact, you can't simply leave out things that are hard to measure but still wind up with a solid conclusion.

Re: A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news

#10
post #5

>> to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations both inside and outside of Seattle in their calculations. I read this to mean that the study therefore would exclude employers such as Seattle-based Starbucks, Seattle-based Amazon, Seattle-based Costco, Seattle-based Nordstrom, McDonald's, etc. Based on that readi…

I'm not intelligent enough to say either way. I do think that excluding them was a good idea. If the only businesses that can survive a law are massive multi-national corporations, we've got a problem...
Post reply on HN