“This study illustrates how singular policies can affect more than just payroll and can shape organizational structure and service delivery,” said lead author Jennifer Otten, an associate professor in the School of Public Health. The report concludes that there are distinct trade-offs. Now that the first Seattle minimum wage increase has been in effect for more than ten months, and as local employers brace for the additional minimum wage hikes that will eventually increase … The first paper, “Responding to an Increased Minimum Wage: A Mixed Methods Study of Child Care Businesses during the Implementation of Seattle’s Minimum Wage Ordinance,” was published in late December in a special issue of Social Work and Society International Online Journal. And Seattle, the first city with a $15 minimum wage, now forces large employers to pay at least $16 an hour. Seattle has served as a national guinea pig for the policy since 2014, when its voted to gradually raise its minimum wage from $9.47 to $15.45 for large employers this year and $16 in … When the policy went into effect in 2015, Seattle’s minimum wage became not only the highest in the nation, but likely the most studied. Help us reach our goal by making a contribution to Vox today, from as little as $3. The data did show, Zipperer argued, that all of the workers they studied were “better off after the minimum wage increase” — higher-hour workers earned more with a higher wage while the low-hour workers got the same pay for less work. Matthew Zeitlin is a journalist in New York City. As of January 2020, Seattle’s minimum wage is $16.39 per hour at companies with over 500 employees globally and $15.75 per hour in compensation at smaller businesses with no tips or healthcare benefits. Ben Zipperer of the liberal Economic Policy Institute wrote that the UW research is based on a “flawed comparison” between Seattle and the rest of the state. raise prices or fiddle with workers’ hours, Ben Zipperer of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, Why New York’s free college program is still costing its students. Minimum wage was indexed with inflation each year and set to increase gradually. Hundreds of restaurants throughout the … We cannot be confident that it has uncovered the causal effect of the Seattle minimum wage increase, which took effect in an economy that was already booming. The demand for higher minimum wage has gained increasing momentum.Cities like Seattle and San Francisco have implemented $15 minimum wage for some workers. The University of Washington published a study called "Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence from Seattle" which focuses on evaluating the effects of the 2015 increase of the minimum wage to $11 per hour and the additional increase to $13 in 2016 on citywide employment and the number of hours worked. And unlike many cities, Seattle was well situated, economically, to handle a large minimum wage increase, and the consequences were still mediocre, leaving the average low-wage worker virtually no better off. The minimum wage for some large employers jumped from $11 to $13 from 2015 to 2016. The study found that more than half of Seattle child care businesses were affected by increased labor costs as the policy increased to $13 per hour, and that the majority will be impacted as the policy increases to $15 per hour between 2019 and 2021. A Taco Bell in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle shut down a couple hours early in the spring of 2013. Figure 10.7 A Reduction in the Real Minimum Wage. The results are complex. Laboratories of Democracy: what Seattle learned from having the highest minimum wage in the nation. The data, researcher Mark C. Long explained, suggested a “tipping point” between $11 and $13 “when it becomes less tenable to keep work in the city.” (Critics were quick to point out that this likely wasn’t solely due to the minimum wage policy — Seattle’s labor market continued to heat up during that period, reducing the number of low-wage jobs compared to high-wage jobs overall.). Claim: Fact check/Has Seattle's minimum wage increase impacted employment. The first increase took place in April 2015, from the statewide rate of $9.47 to a new city-level minimum wage of $11.00. I farm this one out to Jonathan Meer on FB. "The effect of the minimum wage depends on a lot of … For more information about the supermarket food prices study, contact Buszkiewicz at buszkiew@uw.edu. 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