Update, new study on this came by.
Seattle Times: A tale of two Seattle job markets for low-wage workers in new minimum-wage study
Quote:
More-experienced workers in Seattle’s low-wage labor market saw their paychecks rise with the city’s minimum-wage increases and stayed in jobs longer, while less-experienced workers, on average, saw little or no change.
That’s the latest finding from a team of University of Washington researchers, whose first study on Seattle’s minimum wage increases in 2017 concluded paychecks for low-wage workers on average were shrinking slightly because they were working fewer hours even as the pay floor rose from $11 to $13 an hour in 2016. That finding provided ammunition to opponents of the wage increases.
Researchers followed more than 14,000 people employed in Seattle at a wage of $11 an hour or less at the beginning of 2015, before the wage increases. Looking at the same group about 18 months later, the researchers found that workers who started out working more hours — defined in the study as more-experienced workers — ended up earning on average $251 more per quarter. The less-experienced half of the group, which logged less than a third as many hours on the job each week at the beginning of the study period, averaged little or no change in income. That includes earnings anywhere in Washington, not just in Seattle.
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So far, the bottom line sounds like this. At first, employers reacted to the increase by giving their employees fewer hours. Over time, employers found that if they were offering higher wages, they could now expect more out of their employees. The "good" employees still got fewer hours (if you the math), but they were paid more via the law, and so did better per quarter. The lower half continued to get even fewer hours, and as a result saw no improvement in take-home pay. And then there are the people not getting hired at all:
Quote:
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For low-wage workers with less experience — a high-school student looking for a summer job, say — the wage increases have led to fewer job opportunities, the researchers found.
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All this is happening during an economic boom. If it was during a bust the picture would be much more bleak. But it's not the broader unemployment I thought it might be - in a record low time for unemployment in general. It's just stagnant income and fewer opportunities to get started.
Can't vote yourself prosperity.