02 December 2016

Clearly, Raising the Minimum Wage in Seattle was anAbject Failure

Two years after $15.00 an hour became the law in Seattle the city has experienced some of the strongest employment growth in the nation:
In light of a recent monthly release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), time for a quick trip to the glorious pacific northwest and the Seattle, WA area to revisit what’s been happening there in the wake of that city’s rising minimum wage.

………

Well, in the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett Metropolitan Division (MD), comprised of King and Snohomish Counties, BLS just reported (on November 30) this:

Now, as good as that news is (and it’s pretty impressive), it does represent a two county area and not just the city of Seattle proper. Some may recall that in many of his pieces on Seattle, [American Enterprise Institute Puke] Mark Perry very inappropriately used the even larger three-county Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), and I called him out on that.

Well, as luck would have it, we can actually drill down to the city of Seattle proper and take a look at its unemployment rate (among other things). So, how’s Seattle faring?

What's more, restaurant and hospitality employment is way up, exactly the opposite of what the right wingers predicted.

Once again, the conservatives are certain, determined, and wrong.

2 comments :

Stephen Montsaroff said...

You know, corelation is not causation.

The wage rise was a good thing. But it had very little to do with the economy. Increased hiring by tech is the driving force, with increased spending on entertainment being afactor.

Matthew Saroff said...

Correlation is not causation, but lack of correlation is lack of causation.

The increasing minimum wage was cast by the right wing think tanks and freshwater economists as inexorably and immediately leading to skyrocketing unemployment and the collapse of the restaurant business.

It turns out that the opposite happened, and Seattle is one of the most heavily restauranted cities in the US.

The Chicago School/Right Wing Think Tank is completely and conclusively wrong.

Post a Comment