Consequently, total payroll fell for such jobs, implying that the minimum wage ordinance lowered low-wage employees’ earnings by an average of $125 per month in 2016
The left-wing hotbed of Seattle (home to the United States’ only openly Trotskyist lawmaker, Councilor Kshama Sawant) was among the first cities to pass the $15 per hour minimum wage demanded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and local left-wing hypocritical businessman Nick Hanauer, dubbed “America’s worst minimum wage pundit” by Forbes writer Adam Ozimek. The City Council was sufficiently confident that they had repealed the law of supply and demand that they commissioned a study that they hoped would show other liberal cities that marching to the union tune was costless.
That study, conducted by researchers from the University of Washington, has now been released, and the results will not be to the Council’s, the union’s, or Mr. Hanauer’s liking. From the abstract: