Re:The UW Study on $15 an Hour Does Not Reflect My Life as a...
by moonka on Thursday July 20, 2017 @03:24PM
(#14815518)
The Weeds podcast by Vox had a recent episode that talked about this and the study in detail if anyone is interested.
https://www.vox.com/2017/7/14/15964284/the-weeds-seattle-min...
And lo and behold, it turns out that one of the main criticisms of this study is that they excluded most large employers and chains (on the theory that if a chain restaurant in Seattle hires people or fires people, it's more likely to be caused by some external effect than by the wage hike). And since OP brought it up, it does seem like the chains that this study excluded would be likely to be exactly the sorts of employers who would see more benefit than cost. That's not evidence that the study is wrong, period, end of story, but it is intriguing, and I can't find any suggestion on the study's website that they attempted to account for this.
It's easy and satisfying to dismiss things out of hand for being anecdata, but sometimes you miss interesting perspectives in so doing.