2.  Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence
from Seattle
by Ekaterina Jardim, Mark C. Long, Robert Plotnick, Emma van Inwegen, Jacob Vigdor, Hilary Wething  -  #23532 (LS)

Abstract:

This paper evaluates the wage, employment, and hours effects of the
first and second phase-in of the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance,
which raised the minimum wage from $9.47 to $11 per hour in 2015 and
to $13 per hour in 2016.  Using a variety of methods to analyze
employment in all sectors paying below a specified real hourly rate,
we conclude that the second wage increase to $13 reduced hours worked
in low-wage jobs by around 9 percent, while hourly wages in such jobs
increased by around 3 percent. 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. 
Evidence attributes more modest effects to the first wage increase. 
We estimate an effect of zero when analyzing employment in the
restaurant industry at all wage levels, comparable to many prior
studies.

http://papers.nber.org/papers/w23532?utm_campaign=ntw&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ntw