Is That Minimum-Wage Study Real, or Is It Bogus?
A 10-point checklist to help you determine when conservative groups are trying to feed you disinformation on minimum-wage increases
I’ve been writing about the Fight for $15 campaign for over five years, covering the push both here in Seattle, the first major U.S. city to approve a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and nationwide. If you do anything for five years, you start to recognize familiar patterns of behavior that repeat again and again — and the minimum wage conversation is no different.
Conservative politicians and the business lobby promote several arguments every time a minimum-wage increase happens anywhere in the United States. First, news outlets profile a few small business owners who warn, with no proof, that businesses will close; then the media huddles around failed businesses and pin their closure on the wage, despite all the signs to the contrary; and then finally, once the sky doesn’t fall, local pundits argue that while a higher minimum wage might be right for big cities like Seattle, it would surely decimate the job market for workers elsewhere.
These arguments against minimum-wage increases are incredibly predictable — in fact, they’re so obvious that they’re starting to lose their effectiveness. For four…
