The Montgomery County minimum wage impact study is absurd junk science

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The Montgomery County minimum wage impact study is absurd junk science // Economic Policy Institute Blog
http://www.epi.org/blog/the-montgomery-county-minimum-wage-impact-study-is-absurd-junk-science/

In January, Montgomery County, Maryland County Executive Isiah Leggett vetoed an ordinance passed by the county council that would match the minimum wage in the District of Columbia, raising the county minimum to $15 by 2020. Leggett then commissioned the consulting firm PFM to analyze the likely economic effects. The firm just released their study and their findings are so implausible that they border on the absurd. The study essentially concludes that raising the minimum wage in Montgomery County—even a small amount—would be the most devastating economic shock the county has experienced in a generation, more damaging than the Great Recession. To say that the study has methodological problems would be a gross understatement. No county official, business owner, worker, or resident in Montgomery County—and certainly not editorial boards of local newspapers—should give any credence to this report.

The report posits that the proposed $3.50 minimum wage hike over 5 years will lead to massive losses in jobs, income, and county revenues. Ostensibly wanting to present both the costs and benefits, the authors do also note that "increased wages are associated with improved mental health, reduced hunger, and decreased stress for workers and their families." Admittedly, I have only skimmed the full 145 page report, but one only needs to read the initial section on job impacts to see how flawed this "study" is. The alleged large negative outcomes for incomes and county revenues all stem from the jobs findings, so there really isn't need to read much further.

The report's methodology for how they calculate expected impacts on employment is completely divorced from any actual research. First, the authors go through a long discussion of other localities that have enacted higher minimum wages—such as the District of Columbia, Los Angeles, and San Jose, among others— which they refer to as "comparison jurisdictions," implying that the impacts of minimum wage hikes in these locations might provide guidance for how a higher minimum wages might affect Montgomery County. Ironically, they note that in virtually all these "comparison jurisdictions," studies that analyzed the resulting or likely employment effects of the local minimum wage showed that any impact on jobs was negligible. Nevertheless, the authors assert that Montgomery County is not a "twin" of any of these places, thus none of these chosen comparisons should serve as a guide.

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