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"My single data point disproves a rigorously-conducted study spanning millions of workers and thousands of employers." Come on.

by cheald 9y ago

mythrwy 9y ago
https://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/NBER%20Working%20Paper.pdf https://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/NBER%20Working%20Pa... While I don't doubt the veracity of some of the conclusions (more cost per hour means hours get cut) there does seem to be a few what I'd consider "contortions" to get the desired result. I say "desired result" because sometimes people who fund these things, yes, even (especially?) at universities have compelling interest. For instance, they exclude all "multi-site" businesses from the study (Dominos for instance so study doesn't even apply to author in the first place). One has to wonder what the results would have looked like had they not done that. Not arguing for against state/city minimum wages, don't have an opinion either way. Just skeptical.
- cheald 9y ago
  The study was commissioned by the city of Seattle after the passage of its MW ordinance - there is every reason to believe that the "desired result" was "the MW raise is good and justified and has no net negatives". That's a part of the reason that the results of this study are so surprising. The exclusion of multi-site businesses was because of the inability to distinguish a business's physical location from its account location, which would have confounded the results: > The data identify business entities as UI account holders. Firms with multiple locations have the option of establishing a separate account for each location, or a common account. Geographic identification in the data is at the account level. As such, we can uniquely identify business location only for single-site firms and those multi-site firms opting for separate accounts by location. We therefore exclude multi-site single-account businesses from the analysis, referring henceforth to the remaining firms as “single-site” businesses. (This suggests that a locally owned and operated Domino's franchise would be classed as a single-site business and included in the study, while a non-franchised Walmart would be classed as a multi-site business and excluded.) Furthermore, survey evidence suggests that multi-site businesses may be more likely to contribute to the "negative" effects: > Survey evidence, discussed below, indicates that multi-site employers were if anything more likely to report staffing reductions in the wake of the minimum wage increase...survey evidence collected in Seattle at the time of the first minimum wage increase, and again one year later, increase suggests that multi-location firms were in fact more likely to plan and implement staff reductions. Skepticism is good, but let's give the researchers credit here: they've done a pretty stellar job of mitigating confounding variables and justifying why they've made the choices they have in which data they chose to study.
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    Fair enough. For the record I'm generally opposed to government induced market distortions (but understand they may sometimes be necessary). Not for ideological reasons but because practical reality and unforeseen side effects and the cure being worse than the disease and all. Municipalities dictating a minimum wage I'd think to be probably a bad idea. Still, excluding nearly half the workers in question from a specific segment leaves the study much less credible than it could be otherwise. Most Dominos, WalMarts etc. have been honed for labor efficiency for decades. I suspect they can't cut staff or hours much more while continuing to operate in which case workers are (temporarily at least until wage pain causes someone to invent a pizza store machine) better off. Maybe not so much "looser" mom and pop type businesses who this will cause to tighten up. A final point is the value of extra time. So workers are $125 less well off at the end of the month. But they are working many less hours and no matter how you slice it they are making more money per hour. With more free hours they can take part time jobs, pursue education or training which increases future value, save money by doing things like cooking and their own childcare etc. etc. So the loss of $125 per month is at least partially offset by a certain amount of value.

"My single data point disproves a rigorously-conducted study spanning millions of workers and thousands of employers." Come on.

by cheald 9y ago

"My single data point disproves a rigorously-conducted study spanning millions of workers and thousands of employers." Come on.

mythrwy 9y ago

https://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/NBER%20Working%20Paper.pdf https://evans.uw.edu/sites/default/files/NBER%20Working%20Pa... While I don't doubt the veracity of some of the conclusions (more cost per hour means hours get cut) there does seem to be a few what I'd consider "contortions" to get the desired result. I say "desired result" because sometimes people who fund these things, yes, even (especially?) at universities have compelling interest. For instance, they exclude all "multi-site" businesses from the study (Dominos for instance so study doesn't even apply to author in the first place). One has to wonder what the results would have looked like had they not done that. Not arguing for against state/city minimum wages, don't have an opinion either way. Just skeptical.

cheald 9y ago
The study was commissioned by the city of Seattle after the passage of its MW ordinance - there is every reason to believe that the "desired result" was "the MW raise is good and justified and has no net negatives". That's a part of the reason that the results of this study are so surprising. The exclusion of multi-site businesses was because of the inability to distinguish a business's physical location from its account location, which would have confounded the results: > The data identify business entities as UI account holders. Firms with multiple locations have the option of establishing a separate account for each location, or a common account. Geographic identification in the data is at the account level. As such, we can uniquely identify business location only for single-site firms and those multi-site firms opting for separate accounts by location. We therefore exclude multi-site single-account businesses from the analysis, referring henceforth to the remaining firms as “single-site” businesses. (This suggests that a locally owned and operated Domino's franchise would be classed as a single-site business and included in the study, while a non-franchised Walmart would be classed as a multi-site business and excluded.) Furthermore, survey evidence suggests that multi-site businesses may be more likely to contribute to the "negative" effects: > Survey evidence, discussed below, indicates that multi-site employers were if anything more likely to report staffing reductions in the wake of the minimum wage increase...survey evidence collected in Seattle at the time of the first minimum wage increase, and again one year later, increase suggests that multi-location firms were in fact more likely to plan and implement staff reductions. Skepticism is good, but let's give the researchers credit here: they've done a pretty stellar job of mitigating confounding variables and justifying why they've made the choices they have in which data they chose to study.
- mythrwy 9y ago
  Fair enough. For the record I'm generally opposed to government induced market distortions (but understand they may sometimes be necessary). Not for ideological reasons but because practical reality and unforeseen side effects and the cure being worse than the disease and all. Municipalities dictating a minimum wage I'd think to be probably a bad idea. Still, excluding nearly half the workers in question from a specific segment leaves the study much less credible than it could be otherwise. Most Dominos, WalMarts etc. have been honed for labor efficiency for decades. I suspect they can't cut staff or hours much more while continuing to operate in which case workers are (temporarily at least until wage pain causes someone to invent a pizza store machine) better off. Maybe not so much "looser" mom and pop type businesses who this will cause to tighten up. A final point is the value of extra time. So workers are $125 less well off at the end of the month. But they are working many less hours and no matter how you slice it they are making more money per hour. With more free hours they can take part time jobs, pursue education or training which increases future value, save money by doing things like cooking and their own childcare etc. etc. So the loss of $125 per month is at least partially offset by a certain amount of value.