Pure schadenfreude - from The Washington Post:
A ‘very credible’ new study on Seattle’s $15 minimum wage has bad news for liberals
When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost the city's minimum wage up to $15 an hour, they'd hoped to improve the lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the hike has had the opposite effect.
The city is gradually increasing the hourly minimum to $15 over several years. Already, though, some employers have not been able to afford the increased minimums. They've cut their payrolls, putting off new hiring, reducing hours or letting their workers go, the study found.
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. The study, published as a working paper Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research, has not yet been peer reviewed.
A perfect example of doing what sounds good instead of doing what works. I had written about this before: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The website for the study is here: The Minimum Wage Study
Doing a Google search is always an interesting metric. A search for " minimum wage fail " turns up 1,490,000 results.
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