From The Washington Post:
I’m skeptical. Economists David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and William Wascher of the Federal Reserve have spent their careers studying minimum wages. They found that, by and large, they reduce employment of young, low-skilled people. The last time the minimum wage was increased, in July 2009, Neumark estimated a loss of 300,000 jobs….In 2010, economist Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts and two colleagues studied county-level data for restaurants in neighboring states with different minimum wages. There was a job-killing effect in states with higher minimum wages, but it disappeared when they controlled for broader regional employment trends. Ergo, higher minimums were not to blame. Neumark and his colleagues responded with a paper arguing that Dube & Co. failed to justify their choice of non-minimum-wage factors and that the minimum wage’s job-killing effects remain. I found Neumark persuasive, but I’m no statistician.

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