From Investor's Business Daily:
The Bitter Lesson From Seattle's Minimum Wage Hike
Raising the minimum wage is one of those wonderful-sounding ideas that, whenever tried, unfortunately never quite works the way it was promised. To its credit, the Washington Post has noticed.
The Post recently highlighted a new study from a group of economists who were commissioned by the city of Seattle to look at that city's minimum wage hike from $9.96 an hour to $11.14 an hour. What they found was enlightening.
To begin with, the economists said, some of the workers weren't helped at all, since their pay would have likely gone up anyway with experience and tenure on the job.
But the city didn't bargain for what happened to other workers it had sought to help: "Although workers were earning more, fewer of them had a job than would have without an increase," the Post said. "Those who did work had fewer hours than they would have without the wage hike."
Indeed, depending how it's calculated, the economists found that the minimum wage hike that sounded so generous when passed resulted in somewhere between a $5.54 a week raise and a $5.22 a week reduction in pay.
The numbers do not lie - anyone who claims that the $15/hour will have no impact is innumerate and needs to be pitied.
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