Rantz: Deeply ironic attack on UW minimum wage study

An editorial published in Seattle’s alt-weekly, written by a union leader, seeks to dismiss a recent nonpartisan study at the University of Washington that was somewhat critical of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage hike. The attack is amateur and, given the previous criticism of the study, pretty ironic.

According to the UW study, the minimum wage implementation, thus far, has lead to a 9 percent reduction in hours for low-wage workers, which resulted in less take home pay, even if their wage was higher because of the law. The study was shunned by activists because they didn’t like the metrics used to judge the law.

Instead, many of these activists touted a study that painted an exceptionally rosy picture by a professor who, when he’s not advocating for higher wages as an activist or taking money connected to labor groups, publishes studies that always seem to claim minimum wage increases are good.

Now, to help stymie any momentum from people who want to realistically look at the impacts of the minimum wage, these activists are pushing more nonsense scant of any actual data.

Writing for The Stranger, Crystal Thompson (a worker at Dominos Pizza and leader with Working Washington, a front-group for big labor) argues that because she personally hasn’t experienced any negative consequences of the minimum wage hike, the UW study should be dismissed. She wrote:

The study says workers have fewer hours with the new minimum wage, but my hours have been steady, and they give me the days I want so I can get my kids from school when I need to. Nobody’s hours have been cut at my store. We’re actually having a hard time finding people to work here, we’re growing really fast and not enough people are applying. Business has gone way up since the wage was increased. We were so busy we had to cut our delivery area in half. They opened another Domino’s at the corner of MLK and Othello to cover the extra business, and there are more opening in White Center, Alki, and SoDo.

Not that these activists seem to care about context much, it should be noted that she works at Dominos, which has been seeing national growth attributed to their new tools to make ordering pizza easier. Their competitors, meanwhile, have seen lagging sales. To suggest the minimum wage has helped make business better is rather silly.

But, more importantly, if the UW study is deemed problematic, surely we can also admit that an anecdote from a community activist — one that works on behalf of a labor organization that financially benefits off of an increased minimum wage — is also problematic. You can’t keep talking out of both sides of your mouth. On the one hand, a nonpartisan study commissioned by the city should be dismissed because you didn’t like the process they used; yet on the other hand, one worker’s experience is proof that the minimum wage hike has been a success?

If that’s what activists want to use to show the real-world impacts of the minimum wage, do they give equal weight to individuals who have had hours cut as a result of the minimum wage hike? I can provide commentary from workers who have had their hours cut and they blame the minimum wage. But of course, they will dismiss it, rightfully claiming those stories don’t provide more than one person’s experience.

No data was presented in this piece. And I suspect, because it uses the same talking points Working Washington uses, it was written in concert with the labor union front group. It’s a propaganda piece, not a study or even a reliable look at the impacts of the law.

Now, I’m glad Thompson hasn’t been personally impacted in a negative way. Society benefits when workers aren’t struggling. No matter what Progressives will claim about “evil” or “greedy” Republicans, everyone wants what’s best for workers, regardless of their political stripes. They just have different ideas on how to best serve the worker. That’s why calling out this kind of propaganda is so important.

Working Washington financially benefits from this bill and much of the ordinances they try to pass. It’s in their best interest to paint a rosy picture that may not be an accurate reflection of how workers are impacted. And if we fall for their propaganda, we may be ignoring real people’s struggles.

Should we dismiss Thompson out of hand? No. But we should understand it’s as important as the anecdotes we’re hearing from people claiming they are being hurt. And it should certainly take a backseat to actual studies done by professionals with no skin in the game. Much study is still to be done. Anyone who says otherwise has an agenda; claiming the sky is falling is just as ridiculous as claiming all is rosy. No one knows yet because the full law hasn’t even been implemented.

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