Liberals try to refute Seattle minimum wage study

Liberals are aggressively trying to debunk a recent study by the University of Washington that found that Seattle's recent move to a $13-an-hour minimum wage had left the city's low-wage workers much worse off.

The study is potentially a major threat to the national movement for a $15 minimum wage, presenting the first significant evidence that such efforts may be doing more harm than good.

Liberals have criticized the report's methodology, arguing that its findings are out of step with past studies on the minimum wage, although increases to Seattle's current level were unprecedented until recently. Mark Long, co-author of the study, shrugged off such criticisms, saying it was to be expected given the groups' politics.

"The [minimum wage] advocates have been critical because our report makes their job harder," Long, a professor with university's Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, told the Washington Examiner. If the study had found results more to the advocates' liking, they wouldn't be complaining about the methodology, he said.

For $15 minimum wage fans, the report released June 26 as a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research was a rude shock. It found that the city's increase to $13 an hour in 2016, up from $9.32 in 2013 and part of a planned phase-in to $15 for most employers by 2018, had sharply reduced wealth among low-wage workers because of job losses and reductions in hours worked. Businesses did both to mitigate the sharp increase in labor costs they faced.