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Did I miss something, or does he basically cite restaurant employment numbers and declare the hike a smashing success? While that's one metric, using only that

Did I miss something, or does he basically cite restaurant employment numbers and declare the hike a smashing success? While that's one metric, using only that metric to declare success seems just as arbitrary (& biased) as those who were selectively using other metrics to declare it a failure.

_Schizotypy 8y ago
maybe the reasoning is something like more people have money to spend eating out (also would include more shopping) feeding more money into those businesses which causes them to hire more people. this line of reasoning MAY be able to point to a larger systemic effect of raising the min wage
- danjayh 8y ago
  True, this could be used as a sort of indicator for that, but I think a more clear-cut set of metrics to see such an effect would be participation rate and unemployment rate among low-skilled workers ... but I have no idea where one would find such data.
Spooky23 8y ago
Restaurants drive demand for minimum wage workers and have challenging margins. They print money in good times, and go broke quickly when things go bad. They tend to be a proxy for alot of other consumer facing businesses. They are also the most desirable low-wage jobs as the hours are more consistent. They're challenging to fill because you have to hustle at restaurants, while the average grocery store employee is much less utilized. Bussing tables is a much better gig than folding pants at the Gap, supermarket or whatever -- you easily lose 25-35% of your hours when weather or other variation reduces foot traffic.
Retric 8y ago
Opponents had citied a specific paper that was demonstrated incorrect. That does not disprove all downsides, but does disprove a specific argument.
moorhosj 8y ago
What you missed is that detractors, notably Tim Worstall at Forbes and Mark Perry at AEI, were specifically pointing to this metric to state their case against the wage increase. It isn't arbitrary to use the very metric presented by the detractors to prove their point invalid. example: http://www.aei.org/publication/seattles-new-minimum-wage-law-takes-effect-april-1-but-is-already-leading-to-restaurant-closings-and-job-losses/ http://www.aei.org/publication/seattles-new-minimum-wage-law...
jellicle 8y ago
The argument, very strongly made by minimum wage opponents, was that Seattle's restaurant industry would collapse entirely. Hacker News even ran several stories about the impending collapse. That... didn't happen, and it's important to hold predictors accountable if we want to make better predictions in the future.
- burfog 8y ago
  It was starting to happen (with research published), and then the general nationwide economy started booming. It's easy to hide local problems when the national economy is amazing. If we hit a recession, the low-skill Seattle workers are going to suffer greatly. If you carefully pick the start and end points, you can "prove" a lot of things that just aren't so.

_Schizotypy 8y ago

maybe the reasoning is something like more people have money to spend eating out (also would include more shopping) feeding more money into those businesses which causes them to hire more people. this line of reasoning MAY be able to point to a larger systemic effect of raising the min wage

danjayh 8y ago
True, this could be used as a sort of indicator for that, but I think a more clear-cut set of metrics to see such an effect would be participation rate and unemployment rate among low-skilled workers ... but I have no idea where one would find such data.

Spooky23 8y ago

Restaurants drive demand for minimum wage workers and have challenging margins. They print money in good times, and go broke quickly when things go bad. They tend to be a proxy for alot of other consumer facing businesses. They are also the most desirable low-wage jobs as the hours are more consistent. They're challenging to fill because you have to hustle at restaurants, while the average grocery store employee is much less utilized. Bussing tables is a much better gig than folding pants at the Gap, supermarket or whatever -- you easily lose 25-35% of your hours when weather or other variation reduces foot traffic.

Retric 8y ago

Opponents had citied a specific paper that was demonstrated incorrect. That does not disprove all downsides, but does disprove a specific argument.

moorhosj 8y ago

What you missed is that detractors, notably Tim Worstall at Forbes and Mark Perry at AEI, were specifically pointing to this metric to state their case against the wage increase. It isn't arbitrary to use the very metric presented by the detractors to prove their point invalid. example: http://www.aei.org/publication/seattles-new-minimum-wage-law-takes-effect-april-1-but-is-already-leading-to-restaurant-closings-and-job-losses/ http://www.aei.org/publication/seattles-new-minimum-wage-law...

jellicle 8y ago

The argument, very strongly made by minimum wage opponents, was that Seattle's restaurant industry would collapse entirely. Hacker News even ran several stories about the impending collapse. That... didn't happen, and it's important to hold predictors accountable if we want to make better predictions in the future.

burfog 8y ago
It was starting to happen (with research published), and then the general nationwide economy started booming. It's easy to hide local problems when the national economy is amazing. If we hit a recession, the low-skill Seattle workers are going to suffer greatly. If you carefully pick the start and end points, you can "prove" a lot of things that just aren't so.