The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) immediately took issue with the study’s methodology, and said the report was automatically biased toward finding job losses because of the way it handled data. “The authors’ analysis, however, suffers from a number of data and methodological problems that bias the study in the direction of finding job loss, even where there may have been no job loss at all. One initial indicator of these problems is that the estimated employment losses in the Seattle study lie far outside even those generally suggested by mainstream critics of the minimum wage (see, for example, Neumark and Wascher [2008])—as the authors themselves acknowledge
Seattle Pi
June 27, 2017
“My view of the research is that it seems to work,” Ben Zipperer, of the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, tells the Washington Post. “The minimum wage in general seems to do exactly what it’s intended to do, and that’s to raise wages for low-wage workers, with little negative consequence in terms of job loss.”
Minnesota Public Radio
June 27, 2017
“One initial indicator of these problems is that the estimated employment losses in the Seattle study lie far outside even those generally suggested by mainstream critics of the minimum wage,” wrote Ben Zipperer and John Schmitt in an analysis for the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
The Washington Examiner
June 27, 2017
Meanwhile, the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute issued a statement Monday questioning the methodology of the UW research, calling it “fundamentally flawed.” “(The) study … suffers from a number of data and methodological problems that undermine and cast doubt on its conclusions,” the statement says, adding that the UW researchers calculated employment losses “that are well outside the bounds of most published research on the minimum wage (and) contains several notable flaws that cast significant doubt on its findings.”
KOMO
June 27, 2017
The study could overturn decades of conventional wisdom that said the benefits of raising the minimum wage outweigh the costs, the Washington Post reports.
“My view of the research is that [the minimum wage] seems to work,” Ben Zipperer, an economist at pro-minimum wage Economic Policy Institute, told WaPo. “The minimum wage in general seems to do exactly what it’s intended to do, and that’s to raise wages for low-wage workers, with little negative consequence in terms of job loss.”
The Daily Caller
June 27, 2017
His fears are backed up by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which projects that more than 81,000 jobs in Ohio could be lost within five years under the AHCA, resulting in a 0.7 percent drop in the state’ overall employment.
NPR
June 27, 2017
The Economic Policy Institute says researchers used limited data and their analysis is biased.
KIRO
June 26, 2017
“This is happening in Seattle anyway, regardless of the minimum wage; we are seeing a shift away from low-wage jobs and to high-wage jobs,” said Ben Zipperer, of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group.
Los Angeles Times
June 26, 2017
And critics of the research pointed out what they saw as serious shortcomings. In particular, to avoid confusing establishments that were subject to the minimum with those that were not, the authors did not include large employers with locations both inside and outside of Seattle in their calculations. Skeptics argued that omission could explain the unusual results. “Like, whoa, what? Where did you get this?” asked Ben Zipperer, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington. “My view of the research is that it seems to work,” he said. “The minimum wage in general seems to do exactly what it’s intended to do, and that’s to raise wages for low-wage workers, with little negative consequence in terms of job loss.” … EPI’s Zipperer argued that was the best explanation, given how pronounced the gains were for workers making more than $19 an hour. “You’re just seeing an independent shift in the Seattle labor market toward higher wage employment,” he said, calling the figures for better-paid workers “a red flag.”
The Washington Post
June 26, 2017
How a Rising Minimum Wage Affects Jobs in Seattle
The New York Times/Noam Scheiber
“The key challenge this study faces is how to separate the normal shift that’s happening in a booming labor market — where low-wage jobs disappear and are replaced by higher-wage jobs — from an actual increase in the minimum wage,” said Ben Zipperer, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. “This study exhibits signs that it’s not able to do it.” (Ben quoted throughout)
The New York Times
June 26, 2017