The study's implausible findings—showing a link between Seattle's increased minimum wage and an increase in hours worked in jobs paying more than $19/hour—suggest a flawed methodology: Change in total quarterly hours worked in Seattle (from third quarter 2014 to third quarter 2016) that the Jardim et al. (2017) study attributes to the minimum wage increase (in millions of hours), by hourly wage category
| Hourly wage category | Change in total quarterly hours worked (in millions) |
|---|---|
| Jobs paying under $19/hr. | -4.1 |
| Jobs paying over $19/hr. | 2.0 |
| All jobs | -2.0 |
Source: EPI calculations using data underlying synthetic control estimates for the minimum wage increase to $13/hour from Figure 1 of Jardim et al. (2017). We thank Jardim et al. for providing these data.