“Simply put, restaurants have had to increase prices by much more than retailers and other businesses because they need more employees to earn the same amount of revenue.”
So reports Erin Shannon, director of the Center for Small Business at the Washington Policy Center, who has been closely examining the University of Washington’s study of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage.
“The most important takeaway … is that the impact of Seattle’s $15 wage cannot be measured only in terms of whether prices increased, or even jobs lost. Just as important are the less obvious, and often unseen, impacts on workers, such as fewer hours and lost job opportunities.”
The first of Shannon’s three-part analysis of the UW study ran in the NFIB/Washington e-newsletter on May 19. Part 2 can be read here, and Part 3 will run in the June 16 newsletter to NFIB members.
NFIB has included Shannon’s three-part analysis along with other stories on Washington state’s minimum-wage battles in this special page, Washington Minimum Wage Watch.
