Testing public policy at the frontier: The effect of the $15 minimum wage on public safety in Seattle

Abstract

became the first city in the United States to increase its minimum wage to $15 per hour, more than double the federal minimum wage. Not only was a $15 minimum wage unprecedented, but the increase was also extremely rapid, with the minimum wage rising by nearly 60% in just 2 years. Using a synthetic differencesin-differences estimator, we consider the impact of Seattle's landmark minimum wage legislation on public safety. Although there is speculative evidence for an increase in commercial burglaries, we find little evidence that Seattle experienced a change in its aggregate rate of violent or property offending relative to other U.S. cities. To better understand the mechanisms underlying our findings, we investigate the impacts of the local wage law on employment and earnings for Seattle's lowskilled labor market. We detect no meaningful adverse effects on the employment rates of low-wage workers. Policy Implications: Our results suggest that Seattle increased its minimum wage without compromising public safety. Seattle's experience shows that increasing wages can be a tool for increasing the opportunity cost of crime without reducing employment levels. To the extent that other cities enact higher minimum wages to a level that generates unemployment among low-skilled

The effects of minimum wages on (almost) everything? A review of recent evidence on health and related behaviors

“…But so does one of the studies finding that minimum wages increase crime (Fone et al, 2023). I classify the studies by Mitre-Becerril and Chalfin (2021) and Fone et al (2023) as "convincing," for careful attention to potential counterfactuals, comparisons (in the latter paper) between more-and less-affected groups, robustness analyses, and more. Overall, then, while the research on the effects of the minimum wage on crime presents some of the most credible evidence (I assess only one of the six studies in Table 8 as less convincing), the evidence is conflicting.…”

Estimating the effect of death penalty moratoriums on homicide rates using the synthetic control method

“…Unlike the difference‐in‐differences approach, SCM allows for unobserved confounders to vary over time and does not rely on an assumption of parallel trends (Abadie, 2021; Bouttell et al., 2018). The technique was first used by Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003) to estimate the effect of terrorism on gross domestic product in Basque Country and has since been used to evaluate the effects of prison and jail downsizing (Bartos & Kubrin, 2018), changes in firearm policies (Crifasi et al., 2015), tobacco laws (Abadie et al., 2010), a minimum wage increase at the city level (Mitre‐Becerril & Chalfin, 2021), and the economic impact of Germany reunification in 1990 (Abadie et al., 2015) among other state‐wide and national changes.…”

“…A primary challenge of identifying a causal effect using SCM is ruling out the potential impacts of other changes that may coincide with the intervention (Mitre‐Becerril & Chalfin, 2021). First, state incarceration rates and law enforcement population levels were plotted during the study period to assess whether broader changes in incarceration or law enforcement staffing were evident (see Figure E1 in the Supporting Information).…”

“…In addition to the placebo tests described above, other checks were performed to examine the robustness of results and offer support for the assumption that the timing of the moratoriums was not confounded by other concurrent changes that would explain variations in homicide rates. A primary challenge of identifying a causal effect using SCM is ruling out the potential impacts of other changes that may coincide with the intervention (Mitre-Becerril & Chalfin, 2021). First, state incarceration rates and law enforcement population levels were plotted during the study period to assess whether broader changes in incarceration or law enforcement staffing were evident (see Figure E1 in the Supporting Information).…”

Currency Devaluation as a Source of Growth in Africa: A Synthetic Control Approach

“… 6 While the SCM has been widely used in applied economics papers, its ASCM extension has only recently been applied in published research. A few notable examples outside of the original paper that introduced the technique are Cole et al ( 2020 ) who use ASCM to evaluate the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown on air pollution in China; Amador-Jiménez et al ( 2020 ) who investigate the effects of forest fires in Colombia; and Mitre-Becerril and Chalfin ( 2021 ) who investigate the impact of the $15-minimum wage on public safety in Seattle. …”