[cwyers]

Okay, but if you look at the results of the UW study:

> This paper evaluates the wage, employment, and hours effects of the first and second phase-in of the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance, which raised the minimum wage from $9.47 to $11 per hour in 2015 and to $13 per hour in 2016. Using a variety of methods to analyze employment in all sectors paying below a specified real hourly rate, we conclude that the second wage increase to $13 reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs by around 9 percent, while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent. Consequently, total payroll fell for such jobs, implying that the minimum wage ordinance lowered low-wage employees’ earnings by an average of $125 per month in 2016. Evidence attributes more modest effects to the first wage increase. We estimate an effect of zero when analyzing employment in the restaurant industry at all wage levels, comparable to many prior studies.

There's a few things going on here.

1) Looking at just the restaurant industry, which is all the Berkeley study looked at, the UW study found an effect of zero. It's all the employment sectors Berkeley didn't look at where the UW study found other results.

2) They found a smaller increase in hourly wages than other studies, because they were able to figure out how many employees were earning more than the previous minimum wage but less than the new minimum wage. This should be agnostic to the multi-site data issue.

3) They found that the number of employees held steady and the number of hours worked dropped. That's not the effect that you speculate the lack of multi-site data would lead to.

[culturalzero]

Ha,I am actually one of those people who were being studied. I was a minimum wage worker in Seattle through both of these wage hikes. There are a lot of assumptions being made here that don't reflect reality. The biggest though is that every single person is a rational economic played that is looking to maximize their income. The reality is that a huge number of people living on minimum wage here are depressed, and many don't want to maximize their income. They want to do as little work as they can to pay the bills month to month. They are prioritizing time NOT working over whatever pay they get. A susprising number of these people are actually great job candidates with great degrees and intelligence who are in a period of their lives where they are seeking out things other than immediate career goals or money.

[hammock]

So they don't want to maximize their income, rather, they want to minimize the hours needed to work to cover their bills. In both scenarios, the laborer is still chasing a higher wage (assuming hourly work). So not sure you're making sense.

[culturalzero]

Actually, how many low cognitive load, high paying jobs will allow people to work a casual 20 hour work week, and take days off or call in sick with little repercussions? Most middle class jobs, such as the one I have now will require a full time commitment, along with a higher cognitive load and responsility. Oh, and so those people who want to pay their bills and nothing more? When their wages went up, they had the leisure to work less.(I have no clue where UW got their mere 3% raise claim, I experienced a much larger bump) While cost of living has gone up in Seattle, there are countless ways to navigate that, as those familiar with living on less know.

[chris_va]

How was your experience in the study? Do you feel like the UW study missed any important questions or aspects of your life that would potentially alter their conclusions?

As for depression, from what I can tell of skimming the UW paper (hopefully I did not miss anything): they did not segment by education or earnings potential, and provide no insight into This seems fairly flawed, given that you would expect different subpopulations to respond very differently to a reduction in available hours.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

1) Looking at other industries doesn't invalidate the multi-site critique.

2) The problem here is they narrowly looked at only a small band; they don't even consider jobs which make more than $19/hr. Consider a hypothetical world where when the minimum wage goes from $12/hr to $13/hr, the people who were already making $13 get raised to $14, those making $14 get a bump to $15 and so on with zero effect on the number of people employed, essentially everyone gets a $1 raise. (Note: I am not saying this is our world.) What would the UW study show? It would show a decrease in labor equal to amount of people previously making between $18.01 and $19.00. All these people have been raised above the $19 boundary and so no longer are counted. So even in a situation with no change in the amount of jobs and only positive wage effects, the UW study will show negative employment effects.

This is actually where the difference between Berkeley's positive effect and UW's zero effect comes in, from the pdf I linked previously:

This pattern of average higher pay and more employment appears also in food services: a decline of about 150 jobs paying under $19 from 2014 to 2016 and a simultaneous increase of about 4,500 jobs in all pay levels at single-site food service establishments.

This actually brings me to one of the biggest problems, also from the pdf above:

The UW report nonetheless finds an unprecedented impact of wage increases on jobs, ten times higher than the average in 942 published minimum wage and non-minimum wage estimates, and triple that of minimum wage critic David Neumark.7 There is no reason why Seattle's low-paid employers should be so much more sensitive to wage increases than employers elsewhere.

Incredible results demand incredible proof and the UW study does not do a good job at all of providing that proof.

EDIT: 3) Whether it's number of jobs or hours of work, both are affected by the $19/hr cap so the difference is inconsequential.

[cwyers]

"The UW report nonetheless finds an unprecedented impact of wage increases on jobs, ten times higher than the average in 942 published minimum wage and non-minimum wage estimates, and triple that of minimum wage critic David Neumark. There is no reason why Seattle's low-paid employers should be so much more sensitive to wage increases than employers elsewhere."

Except that's not the claim. Nobody's saying Seattle is more sensitive, just that there's better data there.

So, we start off with talking about the multi-site critique, I respond to that, and you... switch topics to the $19 cut-off? Is this Calvinball?

[frgtpsswrdlame]

>So, we start off with talking about the multi-site critique, I respond to that, and you... switch topics to the $19 cut-off? Is this Calvinball?

I'm sorry, is that not kosher? There are multiple things wrong with this study you know... Besides you pointed out something that wouldn't be affected by the multi-site problem so I pointed out that it was affected by the $19/hr problem, that's just a normal back and forth. Really if I'm going to be honest, I think the UW study reaffirms your pre-existing views so you're unlikely to admit that it's a bad study but come on. If people want to make the point that increases in the minimum wage are bad for workers and they want that point to hold up to reasoned critique then I suggest they find something other than this study. It's not good, no matter your political beliefs about the subject.

[cwyers]

> Really if I'm going to be honest, I think the UW study reaffirms your pre-existing views so you're unlikely to admit that it's a bad study but come on.

I could say the obverse about about you, but it doesn't really move the discussion forward.

You said you thought it was a bad study because of the multi-site issue. I responded why I didn't believe that to be the case. You responded that it was a bad study because of the $19 cut-off. Do you still think the multi-site issue is a problem, given my response?

[frgtpsswrdlame]

Yes. The multi-site issue combined with the $19/hr problem prevent the study from being very useful.

Given this quote:

This pattern of average higher pay and more employment appears also in food services: a decline of about 150 jobs paying under $19 from 2014 to 2016 and a simultaneous increase of about 4,500 jobs in all pay levels at single-site food service establishments.

Would you concede the possibility that in Seattle's restaurant sector a higher minimum wage did not have negative employment effects? (NOTE: I edited this question)

[cwyers]

I've never not conceded that possibility! From the abstract of the UW study:

> We estimate an effect of zero when analyzing employment in the restaurant industry at all wage levels, comparable to many prior studies.

[mattmcknight]

Since the raise in Seattle was higher than in previous empirical studies, one would expect a larger observable effect.