Sep 22, 2016
3:58:47pm
UteonBainbridge Starter
The hard part about all the (very early) returns on this change
Is twofold:

First, it is VERY early in the experiment. So far, the economy here is demonstrably better, probably regardless of the the minimum wage changes so far. For low-wage earners, the number of hours worked has gone down slightly, but the annual pay has gone up slightly. Some are hurt, some benefit. I would rather that the market choose who benefits and gets hurt rather than the City Council, but there are no indications yet of an impending catastrophe.

Second, regarding the article that you linked. There are scores of articles reporting the early results of the minimum wage increase. NONE of them claim it is yet a big win for the workers, and NONE of them yet claim it is a big loss for employers. As for whether it is helping or hurting, the very best way to tell what the results of the article are is to look only at the source for the link. IBD, Forbes, etc are certainly going to focus on the negative, and PBS, Seattle Times, etc are going to focus on the positive.

Over time, if the wage doesn't have a big negative effect on the Seattle economy, the right leaning articles will struggle to find more and more negative things to say about to convince other jurisdictions to not implement similar law changes. But they will still claim that raising min wage is a disaster waiting to happen.

Similarly, if the wage experiment cratered the economy in Seattle, left leaning articles are going to struggle to find positive things to support other similar law changes. But they still will argue that it is the "right thing to do" for workers.

Neither has happened yet.

Most Americans would agree that some labor laws are reasonable. Therefore, there is a "line" somewhere that has to be drawn by the government. There simply isn't agreement as to whether this placement of the line is too far.

tl/dr: too soon.
UteonBainbridge
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UteonBainbridge
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