"Yet research on state-level minimum wage policies does not extend beyond $10"
Will a $15 minimum wage kill jobs and hurt the poor?
"Even progressive economists agree that “there is some point at which a higher minimum wage is counterproductive, leading to job losses that more than offset the benefit from the higher wage,” as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a DC think-tank,
put it in 2017. The concern is particularly acute in low-income areas. It’s one thing to hike the minimum wage in California, with its
median household income of $67,000, where affected businesses can raise prices to offset higher labor costs, counting on plenty of well-off consumers who who can foot the bill.
But what about
Mississippi and
Alabama, where median household incomes are less $50,000, and also well below the
national median of $61,000? In such low-wage areas, the risk is that businesses will not be able to convince consumers to pay more, and instead will respond to higher labor costs by shrinking or shuttering their operations: the National Restaurant Association scenario."
Not claiming its completely settled either way, and there are countless articles going both ways on the issue... but I do consider the CBO reliable, and they predict well over a million jobs leaving the economy if we raise the min wage to $15.
And again, IMO shrinking the economy/reducing the number of jobs shouldn't be on the agenda for the demographic facing the most economic barriers and the highest level of unemployment.