@TBPInvictus here:
There have been a few recent minimum wage related developments that I thought I’d memorialize in one quick post. In no particular order:
In March, a minimum wage study was released (pdf) by Kevin Rinz & John Voorheis at Census. You probably didn’t hear about it because it didn’t get much publicity. Herewith the money shot (emphasis mine):
We use administrative earnings data from the Social Security Administration linked to the Current Population Survey to overcome important limitations of public data and estimate effects of the minimum wage on growth incidence curves and income mobility profiles, providing insight into how cross-sectional effects of the minimum wage on earnings persist over time. Under both approaches, we find that raising the minimum wage increases earnings growth at the bottom of the distribution, and those effects persist and indeed grow in magnitude over several years.
On April 11, the Seattle Times reported on 52 new restaurant openings in the Seattle area. If you’ve been paying attention, you know that Seattle has been the tip of the spear in the minimum wage debate. Three years ago, some had trumpeted Seattle restaurant closures before the new minimum wage even took effect. They’ve neither recanted nor even reconsidered the error of their ways as the Seattle area has continued to flourish.
Finally, there’s a report out of The Intercept on a Frank Luntz-led poll commissioned by the National Restaurant Association (yet another NRA). Below is the crucial find in that poll.
Things have not been going well for the anti-minimum wage crowd. Just as they didn’t go well for the pro-Brownback set in Kansas. Just as they’re not going well for the trickle-down supporters of the tax cuts or the pro-tariff set.
Do you see a pattern here . . . ?
