When Kshama Sawant first ran for the Seattle Council in 2013, her background as a community college economics teacher was prominent enough that it gained national attention, though as something of a joke.
Well, Sawant is now trying to take her economic education in a new direction, to bully actual economics professors about their work on her pet issue, the $15 minimum wage. As reported by the Seattle Times, “Sawant is raising concerns about city-commissioned research into Seattle’s landmark minimum-wage law and about public comments by one of the University of Washington professors leading the effort.”
It seems that Sawant is a bit upset not so much that the research on Seattle’s misguided minimum wage law might be wrong, but it could blunt her efforts for national attention, saying “I’m not only concerned that we’re in danger of drawing erroneous conclusions about Seattle’s minimum-wage increase — I’m concerned about the consequences that could have on the nationwide fight for $15 (per hour).”
In typical Sawant fashion, she not only attacked the message, but the messenger. “In a letter addressed to Vigdor on Tuesday, Sawant questioned the study’s methodology and Vigdor’s objectivity.”
The UW professors refused to take Sawant’s attacks without a same-day response. According to the Times, “a letter replying to Sawant on Tuesday, Vigdor and 10 other UW researchers, including several professors, said their work is a collective project.
“ ‘The research products generated by the minimum-wage study team are the work of all team members and not one member,’ they wrote. ‘The entire team has participated in discussion around research design, analysis, interpretation and presentation of results. We have taken great care to discuss where we find the evidence most compelling and where we are most uncertain. We believe our report reflects this care and caution.’”
Of course, Sawant has rarely been as concerned with “care and caution” as she has been with getting media attention. Whether it’s being arrested and comparing herself to “all the best activists in the past and in the present”, or going on a field trip to a police station so she could take pictures for her web site, Sawant is always putting herself in front of the cameras.
And in this case, putting her “academic” approach – which is ideologically driven – ahead of a team that is actually willing to let the data speak for itself.
tensor says
It’s worth noting that all of the “bad” news in the report is speculative, consisting of the authors’ opinions of what might have happened. (These speculations have been quoted as if they were facts by die-hard opponents of the Minimum Wage Law, of course.) Meanwhile, the facts of what did happen: businesses doing better than ever, workers making more money for an average of one fewer hour worked per week — have been ignored by those same opponents.
Perhaps the next report should stick to the facts, and not include speculations which can be taken out of context and twisted by hard-core opponents of the Minimum Wage Law.
Clay Fitzgerald says
Well, you’re here and true to form with the usual liberal BS.
tensor says
Please feel free to compare the study, comments on the study by opponents of the Minimum Wage Law, and my description to tell me what I got wrong. Good luck with that.
Clay Fitzgerald says
I’ll get back to you when it’s fully implemented and the entry level and part time positions for those in school or just starting out in the working world, and for the retirees that just want something to supplement their retirement income have disappeared from Seattle.
SouthernRoots says
He just believes that all businesses have obscene profits and all of them can pay for this increase, and pay raises for the current employees that had been making far more than the minimum, out of those profits without affecting worker hours, prices, or fees. He also believes that the obscene profits will also allow for hiring even more workers to keep up with the unsolicited increase in business due to all that extra cash burning holes in the workers pockets.
tensor says
Roots, if you want to identify where I wrote anything even remotely like that, please provide quotes and links.
(I can understand your wanting to change the subject from what actually happened to your belief about what I said. The latter is not falsifiable, after all — even if you give no examples to support it, which of course you won’t.)
SouthernRoots says
Sor, better yet, why don’t you specifically refute what I “got wrong”. We have had this discussion many times in the past and you have steadfastly refused to consider the costs and impact to the employer.
tensor says
Sor, better yet, why don’t you specifically refute what I “got wrong”.
Despite your (ab)use of quotation marks, I didn’t make that claim. I asked you to provide evidence supporting your assertions, and exactly as I predicted, you ducked even attempting to do so.
If you believe raising the minimum wage will have a negative effect on businesses which use low-wage labor, then you have to explain how Seattle went from having the third-largest number of restaurants per-capita in the country (behind S. F. and the NYC area) to having the second-largest number (only S.F. has more) during the exact period when Washington State’s minimum wage rose to become the largest of all fifty states. I’ve never seen an opponent of raising the minimum wage even attempt to explain this, and I doubt you’ll be any different.
tensor says
Clay — there’s no need to wait. Just compare what I wrote here to the report, and to what opponents of the Minimum Wage Law said about the report. As it is, you’ve left your claim about “usual liberal bs” to wither and die, which is fine with me.
Clay Fitzgerald says
Your BS means doodley-squat, tensie boy! Like I said, I’ll get back to you when it’s fully implemented and we’ll see how it really works out, doofus.
tensor says
And if Seattle’s economy then continues to lead the state, as it has for years, you’ll admit your error, right?
Hahahahahaha…
Clay Fitzgerald says
So, you got that from gazing into your crystal ball while in a drug induced trance, huh?
tensor says
While I doubt you’ll answer, I do wonder for how long Seattle would have to lead the rest of the state before you’d admit your predictions of doom had been wrong? (It’s been five years already, and you seem to have no interest in doing so yet…)
Clay Fitzgerald says
Five years since what? … when you were hatched under a rock?
Biff says
Seattle’s economy will continue to lead the state and it will have zero to do with maximum idiocy. Seattle’s cost of living will also lead the state and that will have everything to do with maximum idiocy.
tensor says
While I was originally going to salute your usual keen grasp of economics — shown by your expectation that the state’s largest city, where the economy leads the state, should not be expected to have the highest cost of living — I’ll have to give precedence to your Party-line dedication to doublethink. Claiming — in consecutive sentences! — that Seattle’s City Coubcil does, and does not, have an effect upon the economy is a performance to inspire any right-thinking comrade. (Bonus points for your use of only Party-correct terms and zero evidence, too!)