À propos of a conversation going on in comments, the City of Seattle commissioned some economists to study the city’s new, higher minimum wage. From the Washington Post:
The average hourly wage for workers affected by the increase jumped from $9.96 to $11.14, but wages likely would have increased some anyway due to Seattle’s overall economy. Meanwhile, although workers were earning more, fewer of them had a job than would have without an increase. Those who did work had fewer hours than they would have without the wage hike.
Accounting for these factors, the average increase in total earnings due to the minimum wage was small, the researchers concluded. Using their preferred method, they calculated that workers’ earnings increased by $5.54 a week on average because of the minimum wage. Using other methods, the researchers found that the minimum wage hike actually caused total weekly earnings to drop — by as much as $5.22 a week.
which is exactly what you’d expect under a conventional microeconomic explanation given elasticity of demand of labor and all other things being equal. I haven’t been able to uncover the actual study. I wonder whether these results are based on empirical results or they’re making assumptions along the lines suggested above.
What with all the other cities and states adopting higher minimum wage laws and, if Hillary Clinton is elected, a likely renewed push for a higher national minimum wage, I suspect we’ll see many, many more such studies.
I think this is what you are looking for:
The Minimum Wage Study
The July Report link is the tan box above the News Highlights. (At first, second, and third and fourth, fifth, and sixth, I missed the link.) I ran across it this morning, but I have not read it.