[Happy Monkey]

Interesting; two studies came out with opposing results; one concentrated on restaurants, including fast food chains, and the other covered all sectors, but excluded multi-location businesses, like fast-food chains. One had excellent access to lots of data, but only in Washington State, while the other used more general data, but made comparisons across the country.

Neither study included multi-location businesses across all sectors, which I would expect to be a fairly significant block. On the one hand, it's a valid point if raising the minimum wage hurts mom & pop shops more than chains, but on the other hand, chains have been knocking out the mom & pop shops already, under historically low minimum wages. A study that purports to talk about the average impact to workers while omitting workers who work for businesses with widespread locations seems suspect. As does one that only includes restaurants, though that seems to be the standard, if these articles are correct.