Minimum Wage Increases In Six Cities Working As Intended, Berkeley Study Of Food-Service Jobs Finds

The minimum wage increases that started four years ago in SeaTac are spreading across the country, but economists continue to study – and disagree about – the impact of the new policies on pay and jobs.

The latest look at increased wage floors in six U.S. cities, including Seattle, finds that food-service workers saw increases in pay and no widespread job losses. That reinforces the conclusions that the same group of University of California, Berkeley, researchers reached in 2017 after studying the impact just in Seattle.

This time, the Berkeley researchers examined Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Chicago and Washington, D.C., where minimum wages at the end of 2016 – the end of the study period – ranged from $10 to $13.

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