💬 Discussion
Two Greek thinkers examine work tools, a wage envelope and coins supported by a raised wage floor.

Federal Minimum Wage

Most states now set their own, higher wage floors, so the federal minimum binds mainly in the poorest states. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Bobby Scott introduced the Raise the Wage Act on 8 April 2025 with Democratic co-sponsors in both chambers; Republicans oppose it. The bill sits in committee in both chambers, and a Senate test vote on the same target failed in April 2025 [3].

  • 7.25 dollars an hour is the federal minimum wage, unchanged since July 2009 [3]
  • 22.2 million workers would be paid more once the new floor is fully in place [1]

The proposal

Raise the federal wage floor from 7.25 to 17 dollars an hour in steps to 2030, index it to the median wage, and end the separate lower floors for tipped, young and disabled workers.

The debate

Supporters argue that a full-time job should lift a worker out of poverty and that the federal floor has fallen far behind. Republicans call the increase a one-size-fits-all mandate that drives up prices and destroys jobs in rural areas and in small businesses with thin margins. In the Senate test vote, every Democrat present and one Republican, Josh Hawley, voted for the target. It failed because all other Republicans voted against it.

  • “No person working full-time in America should be living in poverty. The Raise the Wage Act will increase the pay and standard of living for nearly 22 million workers across this country.”

    argues for: Robert C. Scott, Democrat, Virginia Press release, 8 April 2025

  • “Millions of Americans today are working for starvation wages. What this amendment does is raise the Federal minimum wage from an embarrassingly low $7.25 an hour to a living wage of $17 an hour over a period of 5 years.”

    argues for: Bernie Sanders, Independent, Vermont Senate floor, 4 April 2025

  • “Increasing the wage by more than 230 percent even over 5 years will destroy jobs, impacting rural areas and low-margin small businesses that cannot afford such an increase. A law mandating a higher minimum wage doesn't mean much to a worker who loses his or her job because of this.”

    argues against: Bill Cassidy, Republican, Louisiana Senate floor, 4 April 2025

The analysis

Federal Minimum Wage

58% of the weight is for, 42% against.

An argument's weight combines three questions: how big the effect is, how certain it is and how much the good at stake matters. The larger the slice, the more the argument weighs.

For

Against

A federal minimum wage of 17 dollars is, on the current analysis, a good proposal, and the case for it is one fact.

Very likely better

Very likely better: Under the assumptions used, the proposal brings more than it costs in more than 99 of 100 model runs.

 Overall effect: very large

How strongly the proposal works overall, in five steps from very small to very large, comparable across all debates. The ring is always full, even when the overall effect is small; this step says how large it is.

Like the supporters, the analysis favors the bill, but the jobs that dominate the argument barely move the result. Money changing hands, from customers and owners to low-paid workers, carries much of the weight, so the outcome turns on where a dollar does more good. It does more good with households near the bottom than spread across customers' bills or taken from profits held high up the income range. The strongest point against the bill is the higher prices, which come up less often than the lost jobs. A drop in suicides that neither side mentions adds a little to the case for the bill.

In detail

All arguments

Arguments for6 arguments

Pay that reaches the household

30points

About 22.2 million workers, one in seven of everyone earning a wage, would be paid more, on average about 3,200 dollars a year each. Most of them are in the bottom two fifths of the income distribution, where the same dollar buys necessities rather than savings.

Value 5 · Household budgetsImpact 8.6Plausibility 7
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is money moving from employers to the workers they employ, and money is priced at the middle of the scale wherever it appears. What makes this argument worth more than the one that pays for it is not the value class but where the money lands: a wage rise concentrated on households in the bottom two fifths does more than the same sum spread across customers and owners. That difference is carried in the Impact, not here, which is why the wage bill appears twice in this evaluation — once on this side at the recipients' weight and once against it at the payers'. Nothing is counted here for dignity, standing or the feeling of being paid properly, which are real and are not a separate good that can be added without counting the money twice. The part of the wage rise that the benefit system takes back as earnings rise is booked against the measure as its own argument, paired with the saving in public budgets. The value is the middle of the scale, and the whole weight of this argument sits in where the money lands rather than in what kind of good it is.

Impact

The Economic Policy Institute puts the wage bill at 70 billion dollars a year once the floor reaches 17 dollars, spread across 22.2 million workers, an average of about 3,200 dollars a year for those working year-round [1]. Two corrections come off that. Some of it is never paid, because minimum wage law is imperfectly enforced and violations concentrate in exactly the industries this reaches; 12 percent is taken off, in a range from 5 to 20 percent. Some of it is taken back in hours, since employers facing a higher hourly cost schedule fewer hours for the same work; 10 percent is taken off, in a range from nothing to 25 percent, which is where the disagreement between the American studies sits. That leaves 55.4 billion dollars a year. All of it is booked here, in two parts that match the two arguments paying for it: three quarters that customers pay in prices and a quarter that comes out of profits. A quarter of the same sum does not stay with the household, because higher earnings withdraw nutrition assistance, housing subsidy and health coverage; that loss stands against the measure as its own argument, paired with the saving in public budgets. The pay reaches households whose place in the income distribution gives a dollar a weight of 1.8, in a range from 1.4 to 2.3. The Impact is the largest in this debate, and it is large because 22.2 million people is a seventh of everyone who earns a wage.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Additional wages once the floor reaches 17 dollars [1] 22.2 million workers, about 3,200 dollars a year each 70 billion dollars a year
× Never paid, because the floor is imperfectly enforced Setting, range 5 to 20 percent: wage violations concentrate in the industries this reaches − 12 % 61.6 billion dollars a year
× Taken back in hours by employers Setting, range 0 to 25 percent: this is where the American studies disagree with one another [4] − 10 % 55.4 billion dollars a year
÷ In euro-equivalent exchange rate used throughout this evaluation 1.16 dollars to the euro 47.8 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Weight of a dollar at these incomes Setting, range 1.4 to 2.3: most affected workers are in the bottom two fifths, some in the middle fifth 1.8 86.02 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 8.6
Score 8.6 Impact × 5 Value × 7 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 30 of 100

Plausibility

The size of the wage bill is among the better-identified quantities in labour economics, and the disagreement is about employment rather than about the raises themselves. The counterfactual is the wage structure as it would stand with only state floors, which is what the bunching estimator of Cengiz, Dube, Lindner and Zipperer constructs from 138 state minimum wage increases: it counts the jobs that disappear from below the new floor and the jobs that appear just above it, and finds the two almost exactly offset [4]. That design is quasi-experimental and it is the one that carries this number. The confounder that matters is that states raise their minimum wages when their labour markets are already strong, which would make any raise look cheaper than it is; the estimator handles it by comparing the change in jobs in each wage bin of a raising state with the same bins in states that did not raise their floor in the same years, in an event study that shows no movement before the increase. Reverse causation runs the same way and is answered by the same comparison. What remains uncertain is the extrapolation: 17 dollars would be a higher bite relative to the median wage in Mississippi or Alabama than anything in the American record, so the compliance and hours corrections above are wider than the study's own error bars. It is held level with the two arguments that book the same sum on the other side of the ledger, because a wage bill that moves for the people who receive it moves for the people who pay it, and it cannot be more certain in one direction than in the other. Read back: in about seven of ten comparable cases a raise of roughly this size arrives. The Plausibility is high but not at the ceiling: the mechanism is measured, and the size of the step beyond the measured range is not.

Evidence: Converging studies · plausibility at most 8 Evidence of effect: Quasi-experimental · at most 8

Public budgets pay out less

4.2points

Nutrition assistance, housing subsidy and health coverage all withdraw as earnings rise. About a quarter of the wage increase therefore stays in federal and state budgets instead of reaching the household.

Value 5 · Public financesImpact 1.2Plausibility 7
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is public money that does not have to be paid out, priced at the middle of the scale like any other money. It is the other end of the benefits that households lose as their pay rises, which stand against the measure as their own argument: the same quarter of the wage rise, seen from the budget that no longer transfers it. Booking both ends, each at its own weight, is what keeps the two ends of a transfer from being counted at the same weight, because a dollar in a public budget counts once and a dollar in a low-income household counts more. Nothing is counted for the administrative saving of processing fewer claims, which is small beside the transfers themselves. Whether the saving is spent, returned in tax or used to reduce borrowing makes no difference to the weight. The value is the middle of the scale, the level this site uses for public money whatever it is later spent on.

Impact

The wage increase reaching workers is 55.4 billion dollars a year before the benefit system responds. Nutrition assistance withdraws at 30 cents on the dollar, the earned income credit phases out at 16 to 21 cents over its phase-out range, housing assistance takes 30 cents of additional income in rent, and health coverage subsidies taper with income as well. Not all of these apply to any one household and many affected workers claim none of them, so the combined effective withdrawal used here is 25 percent, in a range from 15 to 35 percent. That is about 13.9 billion dollars a year staying in federal and state budgets. Public money carries the standard weight of 1.0, which is what makes this argument smaller than the households' loss built on the same sum. The figure is not a forecast of the budget effect of the bill as a whole, which would also have to count payroll and income tax on the higher wages and the loss of tax on the profits that fall. The Impact is a quarter of the wage bill, and the households lose the same sum at a higher weight.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Wage increase reaching workers before benefits respond [1] from the argument above: 55.4 billion dollars a year at 1.16 dollars to the euro 47.8 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Withdrawn as benefits taper with earnings Setting, range 15 to 35 percent: statutory taper rates of nutrition, housing, credit and coverage programmes, weighted by how many affected workers stand inside a phase-out range 25 % 11.95 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Weight of a dollar in a public budget the standard weight this site uses for public money 1.0 11.95 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 1.2
Score 1.2 Impact × 5 Value × 7 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 4.2 of 100

Plausibility

The withdrawal rates are written into the statutes and the schedules, so once the wage rise arrives the direction is not in doubt. The counterfactual is the same benefit schedules with wages as they would otherwise be. Whether the money moves at all is the same question as whether the wage bill arrives, which rests on the bunching estimator of Cengiz, Dube, Lindner and Zipperer across 138 state increases [4]; this argument is the other end of that same sum and is held at the same plausibility, because a quarter of a wage bill cannot be less certain to leave the benefit system than the wage bill is to reach the household. What is estimated here is the share: how many affected workers are actually inside a phase-out range, given that take-up of nutrition assistance runs around 80 percent and housing programmes are rationed rather than entitlements. The confounder that would lower the figure is exactly that rationing, since a household on a housing waiting list loses nothing when its wage rises; it is named and carried in the band from 15 to 35 percent rather than in the plausibility. Reverse causation does not arise. Read back: in about seven of ten comparable cases the benefit system takes back a share of this order once the raise arrives. The Plausibility is well above the middle: the schedules are law and the wage bill is measured, and the share of workers inside the schedules sits in the band.

Evidence: Converging studies · plausibility at most 8 Evidence of effect: Quasi-experimental · at most 8

Fewer suicides

1.9points

Suicide among American adults without a college education moves with the minimum wage. The measured effect is a 3.4 to 5.9 percent fall in the rate for each additional dollar, and the step proposed here is far larger than a dollar.

Value 9.5 · LifeImpact 0.3Plausibility 6.5
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is people who are alive at the end of the period who would not otherwise have been, which is the good this site prices highest. It is placed half a step below the top because what the studies measure is a suicide rate in a population under financial pressure, and part of what moves that rate is distress rather than death alone. The money that relieves the pressure is counted in the first argument and is not counted again here; what is counted is a different consequence of the same payment, in the way that fewer road deaths and lower fuel bills are two separate consequences of one speed limit. The families left behind are added at the rate this site uses everywhere, a tenth of the value of the life, because a death falls on the people around it as well. The number of people involved is small beside the number who get a raise, which is why this argument is a twentieth the size of the first. The value sits just below the maximum: the stream is life, reached through relief of financial pressure rather than through medicine.

Impact

Kaufman and colleagues estimate that a one-dollar increase in the minimum wage is followed by a 3.4 to 5.9 percent fall in the suicide rate among adults aged 18 to 64 with a high school education or less, and that the effect is larger when unemployment is high [6]. About 49,300 Americans died by suicide in 2023, of whom roughly 20,900 were working-age adults in that education group [10]. Not all of them live where a federal floor would bind: about 45 percent do, in a range from 30 to 60 percent, since thirty states already set higher floors. The step from 7.25 to 17 dollars is far outside the range the studies cover, so the low end of the elasticity is applied at full strength only to the first three dollars and at half strength to the remaining 6.75: 3 × 3.4 plus 6.75 × 1.7, a reduction of about 21.7 percent, in a range from 10 percent (the first three dollars alone) to 30 percent (half the upper estimate beyond them). Because the study measures the rate across a state's whole low-education population against the level of the state floor, it is applied to the step in the floor, not to the raise of an individual worker. That is about 2,040 deaths a year, valued at the figure this site uses for a statistical life plus a tenth for the family: a Normalised Impact of 0.31 on the scale of this evaluation, in a range from 0.1 to 0.58. The figure is deliberately built on the low end of the published effect and it still comes out larger than most single road-safety measures. The Impact is small beside the money in this debate and it is the argument with the highest value per unit, which is why it survives at a twentieth of the size.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Working-age adults with at most a high school education among American suicides [10] about 49,300 deaths a year, roughly 42 percent in this group 20,900 deaths a year
× Share living where a federal floor of 17 dollars would bind Setting, range 30 to 60 percent: thirty states already set a higher floor, and the group is concentrated in the states that do not [9] 45 % 9,405 deaths a year
× Reduction in the rate Setting, range 10 to 30 percent: 3.4 percent per dollar at full strength for the first three dollars and at half strength for the remaining 6.75 dollars, because the step is far outside the range studied [6] 21.7 % 2,040 deaths a year
× Value of a life the value of a statistical life used across this site, 35 life years at 40,000 euro-equivalent, and the site-wide addition for the family left behind 1.4 million euro-equivalent each, plus 10 percent for the family 3.14 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 0.31
Score 0.31 Impact × 9.5 Value × 6.5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 1.9 of 100

Plausibility

The counterfactual is the same states in the same years without the minimum wage increase, which is what the study's difference-in-differences design over state-by-year variation constructs. The design is quasi-experimental, with pre-trends reported and an interaction with the state unemployment rate that behaves as the mechanism predicts — the effect is larger where the labour market is weak — which is the kind of internal check that makes a spurious result harder to sustain. The confounder that matters is that states raising minimum wages also expand health coverage, nutrition assistance and behavioural health funding in the same legislative sessions, and the paper controls for state and year but cannot separate a simultaneous package; that is unresolved and is the main reason for the discount. Reverse causation is implausible in this direction: suicide rates do not drive minimum wage legislation on the relevant timescale. The larger weakness is not identification but extrapolation, and that is carried in the halved elasticity above rather than here. The Plausibility is above the middle: one well-designed body of work supports the direction and size, and a simultaneous policy package cannot be ruled out. Read back: in about six or seven of ten comparable cases a fall in suicides of this order follows.

Evidence: Study · plausibility at most 7 Evidence of effect: Quasi-experimental · at most 8

Hours that come back

0.77points

A job that does not exist also takes no hours. The 700,000 people who go without one of these jobs keep about 1,200 hours a year each, which is worth something even when it is not chosen. It is a small offset to the work and earnings they lose.

Value 9 · Life timeImpact 0.2Plausibility 5
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is time: hours a person has for family, rest, study or looking for other work instead of spending them in a job. This site prices lived time a step below life and health, because it is the one thing nobody can buy back. It is counted separately from the earnings and output the job would have brought, so that the loss of the job is not netted against the hours inside a single number. It is not weighted by income: an hour counts the same whoever has it. Nothing is added for the value of looking for work, which is part of the same hours. The value is high: the stream is lived time, priced at the rate this site uses for hours a person has to themselves.

Impact

The budget office puts employment about 700,000 lower on average once a 17-dollar floor is in place [11]. Those jobs would have taken something like 1,200 hours a year each, in a range from 1,000 to 1,400. That is 840 million hours a year that stay with the people concerned. They are valued at the rate this site uses for free time a person has to themselves rather than time they are forced to spend, worth about a third of an hour's pay at the 7.25-dollar federal floor. That is a Normalised Impact of 0.17 on the card, in a range from 0.14 to 0.2. Beside it, the work and earnings the same jobs would have brought come to 10.5 billion dollars, a Normalised Impact of 0.91, about five times as much. The Impact is small: hours without a job are worth something, but far less than the job.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Jobs that do not exist once the floor is in place [11] average estimate of the budget office 700,000 jobs
× Hours those jobs would have taken Setting, range 1,000 to 1,400 hours, the same as in the job argument about 1,200 hours a year 840 million hours a year
× Value of free time (range 1.44 to 2.01 billion euro-equivalent) the rate this site uses for time a person has to themselves 2.05 euro-equivalent an hour (about 2.40 dollars) 1.72 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 0.17
Score 0.17 Impact × 9 Value × 5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 0.8 of 100

Plausibility

The hours follow from the jobs by definition: a job that does not exist takes no time. The counterfactual is employment under state floors alone, as for the job argument this offsets [11]. The design is the same as there — the budget office aggregates published elasticities whose designs disagree — and the argument therefore shares its plausibility: if the jobs are not lost, no hours come back either. The confounder is the same choice of comparison group that separates the competing studies. Reverse causation does not arise here beyond what it does for the job estimate. Read back: in about five of ten comparable cases jobs, and with them hours, go on something like this scale. The Plausibility is at the middle: it is exactly as certain as the job loss it comes with.

Evidence: Projection · plausibility at most 5 Evidence of effect: Mechanistic · at most 6 Placement: Chain closed, unevidenced · plausibility 4–5

Open: A settled estimate of the employment effect of a floor at this bite would move this argument together with con-3.

Benefits catch part of the loss

0.75points

People who go without one of these jobs do not lose all of the income: unemployment insurance, nutrition assistance and other programmes replace a part of it. About 15 percent of the lost earnings, 1.6 billion dollars a year, flows to households near the bottom from public budgets.

Value 5 · Household budgetsImpact 0.3Plausibility 5
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is money reaching households from public programmes, priced at the middle of the scale like all money. It is the receiving end of a transfer, and the paying end — public budgets — is booked as its own argument, so that the benefit is neither left out nor counted as if nobody paid for it. The weight differs because of where the money lands: the people who go without these jobs sit at the very bottom of the distribution, where a dollar counts for more than in a public budget. Nothing is counted here for the output of the job, which is its own argument. The value is the middle of the scale, and what matters is where the money lands.

Impact

Unemployment insurance replaces around half of prior earnings for those who qualify, but many of the workers concerned are young or have short work histories and do not; nutrition assistance and tax credits respond to lower earnings for more of them. Taken together, 15 percent of the 10.5 billion dollars in lost earnings is replaced, in a range from 5 to 30 percent: about 1.6 billion dollars a year [11]. The households receiving it sit at the very bottom of the distribution, so a dollar there carries a weight of 2.2. That is a Normalised Impact of 0.30 on the card. The same 1.6 billion dollars stands against it as a cost to public budgets at the weight of 1.0. The Impact is small: a sixth of a lost income, moved from public budgets to the people who lose the job.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
9.05 billion euro-equivalent a year
Earnings lost in jobs that do not exist
[11]
× 15 % Setting, range 5 to 30 percent: unemployment insurance for those who qualify, nutrition assistance and tax credits for more; shared with con-5
1.36 billion euro-equivalent a year
Share replaced by benefits
× 2.2 the very bottom of the affected group, as used for these households before v3
2.99 billion euro-equivalent a year
Weight of a dollar at these incomes
÷ 10 billion euro-equivalent a point scale of this evaluation
0.3
Normalised Impact
Score 0.3 Impact × 5 Value × 5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 0.8 of 100

Plausibility

The payments follow from the statutes once a job is lost and a claim is made, so the transfer shares the plausibility of the job loss itself. The counterfactual is employment under state floors alone [11]. The design is the budget office's projection from published elasticities, which the field contests. The confounder is take-up: benefits that are not claimed are not paid, which is carried in the 5 to 30 percent band. Reverse causation does not arise. Read back: in about five of ten comparable cases jobs, and with them these payments, change on this scale. The Plausibility is at the middle: it is exactly as certain as the job loss that triggers it.

Evidence: Projection · plausibility at most 5 Evidence of effect: Mechanistic · at most 6 Placement: Chain closed, unevidenced · plausibility 4–5

Open: A settled estimate of the employment effect and administrative take-up data for affected workers would move P.

Fewer people quitting

0.21points

Low-wage jobs turn over once or twice a year, and every departure costs the employer a search, an induction and a period of lower output. Higher floors measurably slow that churn, and the saving lands with the same firms that pay the wage.

Value 5 · Company budgetsImpact 0.07Plausibility 6
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is money and hours that firms no longer spend on replacing people: advertising a post, interviewing, inducting, and carrying the lower output of someone new. It is priced at the middle of the scale, like all money, and it sits on the employers' side of the ledger, partly offsetting what they pay out in the first cost argument. Nothing is counted here for what a stable job is worth to the worker, which is a different good and is not measured by any of the sources used. Nothing is counted for the customers of a business with experienced staff either, since that would be the same output measured twice. The saving is real rather than a transfer: the hours spent on hiring are consumed and do not reappear anywhere. The value is the middle of the scale, the level this site uses for money inside a company.

Impact

Dube, Lester and Reich find that a ten percent minimum wage increase reduces the separation rate of affected workers by about two percent, using pairs of counties on either side of a state line [7]. The 22.2 million affected workers separate from their jobs at something like 60 percent a year, which is 13.3 million separations. The average increase for affected workers is about 2.29 dollars an hour on a base near 12.50, an increase of 18 percent, giving a 3.8 percent fall in separations, or roughly 506,000 fewer a year. Replacing a worker in an hourly job costs on the order of 1,500 dollars once advertising, interviewing, induction and lower early output are included, in a range from 800 to 5,000. That is 759 million dollars a year. Company money carries the standard weight of 1.0. The Impact is the smallest on this side, which is the honest size of a saving that offsets a fiftieth of what the same firms pay out.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Separations a year among affected workers [1] 22.2 million workers at about 60 percent a year 13.3 million separations
× Fall in the separation rate about two percent per ten percent of wage increase, applied to the 18 percent average increase for affected workers [7] 3.8 % 506,000 separations a year
× Cost of replacing one hourly worker Setting, range 800 to 5,000 dollars: advertising, interviewing, induction and lower output in the first weeks 1,500 dollars 759 million dollars a year
÷ In euro-equivalent, at the standard weight for company money exchange rate used throughout this evaluation 1.16 dollars to the euro, weight 1.0 654 million euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 0.07
Score 0.07 Impact × 5 Value × 6 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 0.2 of 100

Plausibility

The counterfactual is the same local labour markets without the state increase, which the border-pair design constructs by comparing adjacent counties that share a labour market but not a state law. That design is quasi-experimental and it is the one that carries this number. The confounder that matters is that a county on the high-wage side of a line may draw workers across it, so that lower separations reflect a bigger applicant pool rather than more satisfied workers; the paper addresses it by showing that hires fall alongside separations, which is what a stickier match looks like and not what a bigger pool looks like. Reverse causation does not arise, since a county cannot legislate its neighbour's wage. What is not measured is the replacement cost, which is a commercial estimate rather than a finding, and it is the wider of the two uncertainties here. The Plausibility is at the middle: the reduction in churn is measured on the right kind of design, and the price put on each avoided departure is not. Read back: in about six of ten comparable cases churn falls far enough to save something of this order.

Evidence: Study · plausibility at most 7 Evidence of effect: Quasi-experimental · at most 8

Arguments against6 arguments

Customers pay most of it

14points

The best evidence on who bears a large minimum wage increase says roughly three quarters of it comes back in prices. The goods concerned are restaurant meals, retail and care, which households buy across the income range.

Value 5 · Household budgetsImpact 3.9Plausibility 7
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is money leaving households in higher prices, priced at the middle of the scale exactly as the wage gain is. This is the other end of the transfer: without it the wage argument above would count a gift rather than a redistribution, and the whole point of the ledger is that both ends appear. The weight differs, not the value class — a dollar spent on a restaurant meal or a haircut comes from across the income distribution and slightly below the middle of it, because the goods most exposed to minimum wage costs are ones that lower-income households buy more of in proportion to their means. Nothing is counted here for the inconvenience of paying more, which is the money itself under another name. Nothing is counted for consumers who stop buying, which would be a further loss and is not estimated. The value is the middle of the scale, and this argument exists so that the wage rise above is not booked as if nobody paid for it.

Impact

Harasztosi and Lindner studied a Hungarian minimum wage increase of roughly 60 percent, the only episode of comparable size with firm-level data on both sides, and found that about three quarters of the cost was passed to consumers in prices while about a quarter came out of profits [5]. Applied to the wage bill of 55.4 billion dollars, that is 41.6 billion dollars a year in higher prices. Households buying the affected goods — prepared food, retail, personal services, home care — sit across the income distribution but weighted a little below the middle, giving a weight of 1.1, in a range from 0.9 to 1.4. That is a Normalised Impact of 3.94 on the scale of this evaluation. The result depends on the split rather than on the total: at a pass-through of half rather than three quarters, this argument falls by a third and the profit argument rises. What is not counted here is that some customers respond by buying less, which lowers the wage bill in the first place and is already inside the hours correction above. The Impact is the second largest in this debate and it is the same sum as the first, differing only in whose hands it is measured in.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Wage bill employers have to find [1] from the first argument: 55.4 billion dollars a year at 1.16 dollars to the euro 47.8 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Share passed on in prices measured on a Hungarian increase of comparable size, the only episode with firm-level data on prices, employment and profits at once [5] 75 % 35.84 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Weight of a dollar for the households buying these goods Setting, range 0.9 to 1.4: prepared food, retail, personal services and home care are bought across the income range and weigh a little more below the middle of it 1.1 39.43 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 3.94
Score 3.94 Impact × 5 Value × 7 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 14 of 100

Plausibility

The counterfactual is the same firms without the increase, which the Hungarian study constructs by comparing firms with different shares of workers below the new floor. The design is quasi-experimental, it uses administrative firm-level data on prices, employment and profits at once, and it is the only study of an increase on this scale that observes all three — which is precisely why it is used here rather than an American study of a smaller step. The confounder that matters is sectoral: firms with many low-wage workers are concentrated in tradable and non-tradable sectors with different ability to raise prices, and a shift in the sector mix could produce the same measured pass-through without the mechanism; the paper addresses it by splitting the sample along exactly that line and finding the pass-through in the non-tradable sector where it should be. Reverse causation does not arise, since firms did not set the Hungarian minimum wage. The transfer to the United States is the real weakness — different market structure, different concentration, different labour share — and it is taken as a discount below the ceiling rather than a band. The Plausibility is well above the middle: the pass-through is measured directly on a comparable step, in a different country. Read back: in about seven of ten comparable cases most of the cost reaches customers in prices.

Evidence: Study · plausibility at most 7 Evidence of effect: Quasi-experimental · at most 8

Benefits withdrawn as pay rises

7.5points

Nutrition assistance, housing help and health coverage shrink as earnings rise. About a quarter of the raise is therefore taken back again, from households near the bottom of the income distribution.

Value 5 · Household budgetsImpact 2.1Plausibility 7
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is money that low-income households lose as their benefits withdraw, priced at the middle of the scale like any money. It is the household end of a transfer whose other end, the saving in public budgets, stands on the side for the measure. This end carries the households' weight, the other end the weight of public money, so the pair adds only the difference between the two weights to the balance. Nothing is added for the frustration of benefit cliffs or the effort of reporting changed earnings, which are real but small beside the money. Whether a household notices the withdrawal at once or only at the next recertification makes no difference to the weight. The value is the middle of the scale, and the weight of this argument sits in who loses the money rather than in what kind of good it is.

Impact

The wage increase reaching workers is 55.4 billion dollars a year before the benefit system responds, 47.8 billion euro-equivalent at 1.16 dollars to the euro [1]. Nutrition assistance withdraws at 30 cents on the dollar, the earned income credit phases out at 16 to 21 cents over its phase-out range, housing assistance takes 30 cents of additional income in rent, and health coverage subsidies taper with income as well. Not all of these apply to any one household and many affected workers claim none of them, so the combined effective withdrawal is set at 25 percent, in a range from 15 to 35 percent [2]. That is about 13.9 billion dollars a year, 11.95 billion euro-equivalent, which the households no longer receive. They are the same households that receive the pay rise, so a dollar here carries the same weight of 1.8, in a range from 1.4 to 2.3. The saving in public budgets books the same sum at 1.0. The Impact is a quarter of the wage bill at the weight of the households that lose it, which makes it the second largest item against the measure.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Wage increase reaching workers before benefits respond [1] 55.4 billion dollars a year at 1.16 dollars to the euro 47.8 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Withdrawn as benefits taper with earnings Setting, range 15 to 35 percent: statutory taper rates of nutrition, housing, credit and coverage programmes, weighted by how many affected workers stand inside a phase-out range [2] 25 % 11.95 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Weight of a dollar for the households that lose it Setting, range 1.4 to 2.3: the same households that receive the pay rise 1.8 21.51 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 2.15
Score 2.15 Impact × 5 Value × 7 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 7.5 of 100

Plausibility

The withdrawal rates are written into the statutes and the schedules, so once the wage rise arrives the direction is not in doubt. The comparison is the same benefit schedules with wages as they would otherwise be. Whether the money moves at all is the same question as whether the wage bill arrives, which rests on the bunching estimator of Cengiz, Dube, Lindner and Zipperer across 138 state increases [4]. It compares the jobs in each wage bin of a state that raised its floor with the same bins in states that did not, and finds no movement before the increase, so strong labour markets that prompt raises do not distort it. The effect cannot run the other way, because benefit schedules do not set the minimum wage. This argument is the household end of the same sum as the saving in public budgets and is held at the same plausibility, because the money cannot be more certain to leave the household than to arrive in the budget. What remains estimated is the share of workers inside a phase-out range, given that take-up of nutrition assistance runs around 80 percent and housing programmes are rationed; it sits in the band from 15 to 35 percent rather than in the plausibility. Read back: in about seven of ten comparable cases the benefit system takes back a share of this order once the raise arrives. The Plausibility is well above the middle: the schedules are law and the wage bill is measured.

Evidence: Converging studies · plausibility at most 8 Evidence of effect: Quasi-experimental · at most 8

Jobs that do not exist

3.2points

The budget office's average estimate is 700,000 fewer jobs once the floor reaches 17 dollars, with a range reaching 1.4 million. The people who lose them are the least skilled workers in the poorest states, which is the same group the measure is meant to help.

Value 7 · Participation & incomeImpact 0.9Plausibility 5
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is the work that is not done and the earnings that go with it: a job that does not exist produces nothing and pays nothing. It is not priced as money moving between people, because no one receives what the worker does not earn; it is output that is simply not there. What makes it weigh more than a sum of money of the same size is who carries it: people near the bottom of the distribution, for whom a job is also the way into work, routine and a place in the labour market. That is priced in the value class, as this site does for jobs gained or lost elsewhere, not by an income weight on top. The hours that come back and the benefits that replace part of the earnings are separate arguments, so that time, transfers and output are not netted inside one number. The value is above the middle of the scale: lost work at the bottom of the distribution, where a job is participation as well as income.

Impact

For the 2023 version of this bill, which reached 17 dollars in 2029, the Congressional Budget Office put employment about 700,000 lower on average once the floor was in place, with a median estimate of 500,000 and a range reaching up to 1.4 million [11]; the present bill reaches the same 17 dollars a year later. That figure is a count of jobs missing in an average week, already net of people who find other work, so nothing further is taken off for re-employment. The jobs concerned would take something like 1,200 hours a year, in a range from 1,000 to 1,400, at about 12.50 dollars an hour, the average base wage of the affected workers this record uses for the separation argument [1]; state floors above the federal one put that base well above 7.25 dollars. That is 15,000 dollars each, and 10.5 billion dollars of work and earnings a year, 0.91 points on the card, in a range from 8.7 to 12.3 billion dollars. The hours that come back are counted as their own argument, at the value this site puts on free time, and so are the benefits that replace part of the lost earnings and the public budgets that pay them. The Impact is a fifth of the wage gain it accompanies, which is the ordinary proportion when a policy raises the price of the least productive hour.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Jobs that do not exist once the floor is in place [11] average estimate, median 500,000, range up to 1.4 million 700,000 jobs
× Annual earnings and output of one such job (range 7.5 to 10.6 billion euro-equivalent) Setting, range 1,000 to 1,400 hours; the wage is the average base of the affected workers, as in the separation argument; the budget office's figure is already net of re-employment [1] about 1,200 hours a year × about 12.50 dollars = 15,000 dollars, about 12,900 euro-equivalent at 1.16 dollars to the euro 9.05 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 0.91
Score 0.91 Impact × 7 Value × 5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 3.2 of 100

Plausibility

This is the number the field genuinely disagrees about, and the disagreement is not about the design of any one study but about which studies generalise. The counterfactual is employment as it would be under state floors alone, which the budget office builds from the published elasticities rather than from a design of its own [11]. Cengiz and colleagues find essentially no employment effect across 138 American increases; Jardim and colleagues find substantial hours losses in Seattle; Neumark and Shirley's survey of the whole literature finds a majority of negative estimates. The confounder that separates them is which comparison group stands in for a raising state — other states, other counties, or the same state's own wage distribution — and it is not resolved by any of them. Reverse causation is present in the raw correlation, since states raise wages in good times, and is what the competing designs are trying to remove. Because the finding is genuinely contested rather than merely uncertain, the plausibility is held at the middle of the scale whatever the individual designs would allow. The Plausibility is exactly at the middle: that some jobs go is not seriously disputed at this size of step, and how many is the open question of the field. Read back: in about five of ten comparable cases jobs go on something like this scale, which is how the budget office's own range reads — from none at all to twice the central figure.

Evidence: Projection · plausibility at most 5 Evidence of effect: Mechanistic · at most 6

Profits absorb the rest

1.7points

The quarter that is not passed on in prices comes out of profits. Those profits are held far up the income distribution, which is why this quarter of the same sum weighs a tenth of what the wage gain does.

Value 5 · Company budgetsImpact 0.5Plausibility 7
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is money that firms keep less of, priced at the middle of the scale like the rest of the transfer. It is separated from the price argument because the two land on different people: a price rise is paid by customers across the income range, a profit fall by owners, and American business equity is held overwhelmingly in the top tenth of the wealth distribution. Booking them together at one weight would hide the fact that this quarter of the transfer costs less in welfare terms than the other three quarters. Nothing is counted for firms that close, which is a different consequence and appears in the employment argument. Nothing is counted for reduced investment, which would be double counting: the profit is the investment. The value is the middle of the scale, and what makes this quarter cheap is who holds it, not what it is.

Impact

The same Hungarian evidence puts roughly a quarter of the cost on profits [5]. A quarter of 55.4 billion dollars is about 13.9 billion dollars a year. Corporate equity in the United States is concentrated: the top ten percent of households hold about 87 percent of it and the top one percent about half. Weighting the loss by where it lands gives 0.4, the weight this site uses for the top tenth, in a range from 0.2 to 0.7 — the lower end if the losses fall on publicly traded firms, the upper end if they fall on small owner-operated businesses whose owners are nearer the middle. That gives a Normalised Impact of 0.48 on the scale of this evaluation. The small end of the range matters more than it looks: minimum wage exposure is concentrated in franchised food service and small retail, where the owner is often not in the top tenth at all. The Impact is an eighth of the price argument built on the same money, which is what the weighting is for.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Wage bill employers have to find [1] from the first argument: 55.4 billion dollars a year at 1.16 dollars to the euro 47.8 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Share that comes out of profits the remainder of the pass-through measured on the Hungarian increase [5] 25 % 11.95 billion euro-equivalent a year
× Weight of a dollar where business equity is held Setting, range 0.2 to 0.7: the top tenth of households holds about 87 percent of corporate equity, but exposed firms are often small and owner-operated 0.4 4.78 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 0.48
Score 0.48 Impact × 5 Value × 7 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 1.7 of 100

Plausibility

The counterfactual and the design are the same as for the price argument, and so is the source: the Hungarian data observe profits directly rather than inferring them [5]. The confounder is different, though. Which firms absorb rather than pass on depends on competition, and a market with more concentrated buyers pushes more onto profits than the Hungarian average; American food service is more franchised and more concentrated than the Hungarian sample, which argues for a larger profit share than used here. That is named and unresolved and is why the weight band runs up to 0.7. Reverse causation does not arise. The distribution of who owns the affected firms is a measured fact from the Survey of Consumer Finances rather than an assumption, but the match between that distribution and the specific firms exposed to a minimum wage is not. Who exactly holds the profits is a question of how much this costs rather than of whether the money moves, and it is already carried in the band from 0.2 to 0.7 above; it is not deducted a second time here. The plausibility therefore stands level with the price argument, which rests on the same measurement and on the same sum leaving the same hands. Read back: in about seven of ten comparable cases a quarter of the cost comes out of profits. The Plausibility is well above the middle: the split is measured directly, and where the profits are held is carried in the band rather than here.

Evidence: Study · plausibility at most 7 Evidence of effect: Quasi-experimental · at most 8

What losing the job does

0.67points

Losing work damages health beyond the lost income — measurably, and for years. The effect is best documented for long-tenure workers in mass layoffs, which is not this group, so the figure used here is a small fraction of theirs.

Value 9.5 · Life and healthImpact 0.1Plausibility 5
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is health: the raised mortality, the drinking, the depression and the strain on a household that follow being put out of work. It is placed just below the top, in the class this site uses for life and health, because part of what is measured is death and most of it is illness that can be recovered from. It is separate from the earnings loss above in the way that the money and the harm of being defrauded are separate, and the test is the same — a household that chooses to stop working does not experience this. Nothing is counted for the family members around the person, and nothing for the wider community effects that the displacement literature also reports. What is priced is the displaced worker's own condition. The value sits just below the maximum: the stream is health, and health that most people recover.

Impact

Sullivan and von Wachter, using administrative earnings and death records, find that workers displaced in mass layoffs face a mortality hazard 50 to 100 percent higher in the year after and 10 to 15 percent higher two decades later, amounting to one to one and a half years of life expectancy each [8]. That population is not this one. Their workers had long tenure, firm-specific skills and no ready alternative; a worker who does not get a minimum wage job in 2030 is mostly young, mostly short-tenure, and mostly employed again within months. The budget office's figure counts jobs missing in an average week, not people laid off each year, so the harm is priced per year without the job rather than per displacement: 0.05 quality-adjusted years for each such year, in a range from 0.02 to 0.12 — about two and a half weeks of healthy life a year, far below the one to one and a half years a displaced long-tenure worker loses over a lifetime. Across the 700,000 jobs missing in a given year that is 35,000 quality-adjusted years a year, a Normalised Impact of 0.14 on the scale of this evaluation [11]. The band runs further up than down on purpose: if the jobs lost are concentrated among older workers in the poorest states rather than among teenagers, the upper end applies. How far this group stands from the one that has actually been studied is not in the band at all — that distance is what holds the Plausibility at the middle of the scale. The Impact is about a sixth of the earnings loss it accompanies, and the ratio would be much higher if the displaced group looked like the one that has actually been studied.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
Person-years without one of these jobs, each year [11] average estimate of the budget office for a 17-dollar floor 700,000 person-years a year
× Quality-adjusted years lost per year without the job Setting, range 0.02 to 0.12 a year: the lower end if the people concerned are mostly young and move between jobs quickly, the upper end if a larger share are older workers in the poorest states; the distance to the lifetime loss the mass layoff literature measures for displaced long-tenure workers is carried in the Plausibility [8] 0.05 35,000 quality-adjusted years
× Value of the years the value of a healthy life year used across this site 40,000 euro-equivalent each 1.4 billion euro-equivalent a year
÷ Normalised Impact scale of this evaluation 10 billion euro-equivalent a point 0.14
Score 0.14 Impact × 9.5 Value × 5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 0.7 of 100

Plausibility

The counterfactual is workers in the same firms and years who were not displaced, which the study constructs from mass layoff events that removed a large share of a firm's workforce at once and therefore did not select on the individual. The design is quasi-experimental and it is among the cleanest in this literature, using linked administrative earnings and death records rather than survey reports. The confounder that matters is that firms shedding a large share of their workforce may be failing for reasons that also affect the health of everyone who worked there, which the event definition limits but does not remove; that is named and unresolved. Reverse causation is handled by the design, since an individual's health does not cause a firm-wide layoff. The weakness here is not the study but the distance between its population and this one, and that distance is what holds the plausibility at the middle of the scale rather than the quantity, which is already cut to a fiftieth. Read back: in about five of ten comparable cases the health harm behind a lost job appears at something like this size. The Plausibility is at the middle: the harm is well established for a group of workers who are not the ones this measure would displace.

Evidence: Study · plausibility at most 6 Evidence of effect: Quasi-experimental · at most 8

Public budgets pay the benefits

0.35points

The benefits that replace part of the lost earnings are paid from federal and state budgets. About 1.6 billion dollars a year leaves public money for the people who go without these jobs.

Value 5 · Public financesImpact 0.1Plausibility 5
▸ Show reasoning & sources ▾ Hide reasoning & sources

Value

The stream is public money paid out, priced at the middle of the scale like any money and at the standard weight for public budgets. It is the paying end of the benefit transfer in the argument on the other side, so that the replacement of lost earnings is not booked as a gift. Whether the payment is financed by taxes, cuts elsewhere or borrowing is not decided by this bill, and a dollar of public money is counted at 1.0 whatever it is later taken from. Nothing is counted for the administration of the extra claims, which is small beside the payments. The value is the middle of the scale, the level this site uses for public money.

Impact

Of the 10.5 billion dollars in earnings lost in jobs that do not exist, 15 percent is replaced by unemployment insurance, nutrition assistance and tax credits, in a range from 5 to 30 percent [11]. That is about 1.6 billion dollars a year paid from federal and state budgets. Public money carries the standard weight of 1.0. That is 0.14 points on the card, the same sum that reaches the households at a weight of 2.2. Beside the 13.9 billion dollars that public budgets save when wages rise into benefit phase-outs, it is about a ninth. The Impact is small: a sliver of the public saving the same bill produces elsewhere.

▸ Show calculation ▾ Hide calculation
9.05 billion euro-equivalent a year
Earnings lost in jobs that do not exist
[11]
× 15 % Setting, range 5 to 30 percent; shared with pro-6
1.36 billion euro-equivalent a year
Share replaced by benefits
× 1.0 the standard weight this site uses for public money
1.36 billion euro-equivalent a year
Weight of a dollar in a public budget
÷ 10 billion euro-equivalent a point scale of this evaluation
0.14
Normalised Impact
Score 0.14 Impact × 5 Value × 5 Plausibility ÷ 10 = 0.3 of 100

Plausibility

The payments follow from the statutes once a job is lost and a claim is made, so this argument shares the plausibility of the job loss and of its receiving leg. The counterfactual is employment under state floors alone [11]. The design is the budget office's projection from contested elasticities. The confounder is take-up, carried in the replacement band. Reverse causation does not arise. Read back: in about five of ten comparable cases payments of this order follow. The Plausibility is at the middle: it is exactly as certain as the job loss that triggers it.

Evidence: Projection · plausibility at most 5 Evidence of effect: Mechanistic · at most 6 Placement: Chain closed, unevidenced · plausibility 4–5

Open: A settled estimate of the employment effect and administrative take-up data would move P.

How robust the result is

Under the assumptions used, the proposal brings more than it costs in more than 99 of 100 model runs.

gains more than it costscosts more than it gains

Each dot stands for 200 of the 20,000 model runs.

This is above all a debate about distribution: money moving between customers, owners, workers and public budgets carries most of the weight. One judgement carries the result: that a dollar means more to a household near the bottom of the income distribution than to the customers and owners who hand it over. A dollar reaching the affected households is counted at 1.8 times a dollar at median income, the dollar customers pay in higher prices at 1.1, and the dollar that comes out of profits at 0.4. Treat the two sides as equal and the measure comes out slightly behind, ahead in just over two of ten runs and likely worse; at the weights used it lies ahead in all runs. The second number that moves it is how many jobs disappear: the budget office's average estimate for a 17-dollar floor is 700,000, its median 500,000 and its range reaches 1.4 million. Even there the measure would come out ahead in 99 of 100 runs.

Show the distribution of the model runs

20,000 simulated futures

Very likely better · 100 %

In more than 99 of 100 simulated futures the proposal brings more than it costs.

No effect is known exactly; every argument has a range. The calculation draws a possible size for each argument from its range 20,000 times and counts how often the benefits exceed the costs.

Net effect in points per future. Left of zero the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, right of zero the benefits win. Eight in ten futures fall between +8.4 and +13 points.
Scale and assessment

Scale of this evaluation: Normalised Impact, unitless and calibrated to this topic. For comparison, one point here corresponds to about 10 billion euro-equivalent a year.

Size class:large

Effect very large (+110) · 71 % of the effect is positive

Areas show individual argument weights. The positive share of the effect nets out money transfers between the two sides; the probability of a positive net effect is determined separately.

How we score →

Review and sources

AI evaluation · not yet reviewed by a human

This evaluation was produced and sourced by an AI model; a human review is still pending. Figures and conclusions may still change. The review log is at the foot of the page.How review works →

Last reviewed by Claude Opus 5.5 · October 29, 2026 · 9× AI, not yet reviewed by a human
  1. October 29, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5.5re-scored

    v5: Leistungsrücknahme als eigene Contra-Karte con-6 gepaart mit pro-2, Lohnsumme in pro-1 brutto mit Gegenbeinen con-1/con-2; Kategorie unverändert sehr wahrscheinlich besser (1,000).

  2. October 29, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5.5record updated

    Page texts for the new page layout (draft G) with quotes from primary sources; numbers unchanged.

  3. October 21, 2026AI reviewClaude Fable 5.1record updated

    Money amounts in argument texts stated in dollars per style-en.md; scores, chains and balance unchanged

  4. October 20, 2026AI reviewClaude Fable 5.1record updated

    Summary and scale note rewritten to the style of 20 Oct 2026; numbers unchanged

  5. October 16, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5.5record updated

    Text aligned with the card values (Bilanz 2.2)

  6. October 14, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5.5re-scored

    Prüfbericht 11.10. SO-09: Verdienst je fehlendem Arbeitsplatz aus 1.200 h × 12,50 $ (Lohnbasis aus pro-4) ≈ 12.900 € statt 16.000 €; con-3 11,2 → 9,05 Mrd €, Ersatzleistungs-Paar pro-6/con-5 mitgezogen; r 0,599 → 0,608, Kategorie unverändert besser.

  7. September 14, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5re-scored

    Gesamtprüfung 08.09.: 700.000 Jobs aus CBO 2023 (17 $) statt CBO 2019, gleiches P 7 für alle Beine der Lohnsumme, Suizid 21,7 % statt 12 % plus Angehörige (i 1,58 → 3,14), Jobverlust als Bestand mit Zeit (pro-5) und Leistungspaar (pro-6/con-5); r 0,596 → 0,599.

  8. September 6, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5re-scored

    v2: Lohnbetrag als Paar verdrahtet (pro-1 ⇄ con-1 und pro-1 ⇄ con-2, jedes Bein mit dem Gewicht seiner eigenen Seite), dafuer P angeglichen (pro-1 7,5 → 7,0, con-2 6,5 → 7,0 — con-2 doppelte den Eigentuemer-Zweifel, der schon in der Gewichtsspanne steckt). i_spanne und normalisierung an allen 8, zwei Eintrittsgruppen, massstab_hinweis ohne r. Kategorie bleibt Besser (P(D>0) 0,83).

  9. September 6, 2026AI reviewClaude Opus 5First evaluation

    First evaluation: wage bill, pass-through split and employment effect derived from the budget office and the published minimum wage literature.

Evaluations are produced with AI support and reviewed on a schedule for new developments; human passes are marked separately.How we review →

Show all 11 sourcesHide sources
  1. Economic Policy Institute: The impact of the Raise the Wage Act of 2025. epi.org
  2. Congressional Budget Office: The Effects on Employment and Family Income of Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage. cbo.gov
  3. Congress.gov: H.R. 2743, Raise the Wage Act of 2025. congress.gov
  4. Cengiz, Dube, Lindner and Zipperer, Quarterly Journal of Economics: The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs. academic.oup.com
  5. Harasztosi and Lindner, American Economic Review: Who Pays for the Minimum Wage?. aeaweb.org
  6. Kaufman, Salas-Hernández, Komro and Livingston, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health: Effects of increased minimum wages by unemployment rate on suicide in the USA. jech.bmj.com
  7. Dube, Lester and Reich, Journal of Labor Economics: Minimum Wage Shocks, Employment Flows and Labor Market Frictions. journals.uchicago.edu
  8. Sullivan and von Wachter, Quarterly Journal of Economics: Job Displacement and Mortality: An Analysis Using Administrative Data. academic.oup.com
  9. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Characteristics of minimum wage workers. bls.gov
  10. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Suicide data and statistics. cdc.gov
  11. Congressional Budget Office: The Budgetary and Economic Effects of S. 2488, the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 (December 2023). cbo.gov

More debates in this area

Likely better · 87 %
Size: medium
Independent Contractor Test

Replace the 2024 federal test for who counts as an employee with a narrower one that weighs control and the chance of profit or loss above all, and apply it to minimum wage, overtime and family leave alike.
Very likely better · 96 %
Size: large
Paid Family Leave

Create a national insurance programme paying a sliding share of wages — about two thirds for a median earner — for up to twelve weeks of family or medical leave, funded by a contribution on earnings, with a right to return to the job.
Unclear · 49 %
Size: large
Universal Child Care

Cap what a family pays for child care at seven percent of its income, pay nothing up to 85 percent of the state median, and fund pre-school places for every three- and four-year-old.
All debates in Work, Wages and Family Leave →