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[/FONT]Seattle was the first big city to adopt a $15 minimum wage law, and now there’s new research on how that’s affected the prices we pay at stores and restaurants.
“Overall, we found that prices in Seattle are fairly stable and they haven’t gone up very much, if at all, since the minimum wage went up starting in April of last year," said Jacob Vigdor, the Daniel J. Evans professor of public policy at UW. "The exception would be in the restaurant sector, where we found price increases on the order of 7 or 8 percent."
But restaurant prices also rose outside of Seattle. Vigdor said his team didn’t collect that much restaurant data outside the city, making it a bit hard to draw conclusions.
[FONT=Lato, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]"So we don’t have quite as much confidence in saying that 7 or 8 percent is purely a Seattle thing or whether it’s a broader economic phenomenon that could be reflecting rising rents or bigger ingredient prices that could be affecting the entire metro area," Vigdor said.
[FONT=Lato, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Read more @: [/FONT]UW Researchers Report Price Data After Seattle’s Minimum Wage Increase
[FONT=Lato, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Spoiler, they didnt much change. Seattle restaurant prices increased 7-8% (wohooo a burger now costs $8 instead of $7.50 [/FONT]:sarcasticclap[FONT=Lato, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]), but there is question if that is associated with the minimum wage increase because restaurant prices also rose outside of Seattle and are thought to be a broader phenomenon that is tied to rising rent and ingredient prices. The draconian predictions of raising the wage still not coming true. Its time to raise the wage nationally [/FONT]:2razz: