Panel Paper:
Intermediate Impacts of the City of Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Burnham (Hyatt Regency Chicago)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
In June of 2014, the City of Seattle passed a Minimum Wage Ordinance that raised the minimum wage (for larger employers) from $9.47 to $11 per hour on April 1st of 2015; from $11 to $13 on January 1st of 2016; and again to $15 per hour on January 1st of this year. This action by the City was followed by similar policy changes in several large cities and states during the past years. This paper presents a wide ranging portrait of the effects of this increase trough the third quarter of 2016, from the perspective of both employers and workers. We use a variety of estimation methods, including difference-in-differences, synthetic control methods, and interactive fixed effects. Administrative labor market data, based on the State of Washington’s Unemployment Insurance records, will show both the net short- and intermediate-term impact on measures of employment, earnings, and hours worked across all low-wage workers, as well as the distribution of gains and losses across workers or industries. These distributional considerations may in fact be more consequential than average treatment effects to evaluation of the minimum wage as a tool for improving quality of life for less-skilled workers.
