The study's implausible findings—showing a link between Seattle's increased minimum wage and growth in restaurant jobs paying more than $19/hour—suggest a flawed methodology: Percent change in restaurant employment in Seattle (from third quarter 2014 to third quarter 2016) that the Jardim et al. (2017) study attributes to the minimum wage increase, by hourly wage category
Hourly wage category | Percent change |
---|---|
Jobs paying under $19/hr. | -10.7% |
Jobs paying over $19/hr. | 20.1% |
All jobs | 0.0% |
Source: EPI calculations using data from Jardim et al. (2017), Table 3 and Table 9