IESET.
Hypotheses·labour·federal_minimum_wage_employment_meta

US Sanders 2016/2020 $15 federal minimum wage proposal, in meta-analyses of state-level evidence, would not produce the 1.3m-job loss CBO low-end estimate; effect is closer to zero.

PARTIALengine/runs/federal_minimum_wage_employment_meta

PARTIAL - local state FE elasticity -0.0142 is near zero, but the 90% CI [-0.0750, +0.0466] is not contained in [-0.05, +0.05]

confidence cueThe result is useful, but not decisive. Treat it as a clue, not a settled conclusion.

policy briefMixed or noisy

In ordinary language

When minimum wages rise high relative to normal local pay, do lower-skill workers keep their jobs, or does hiring fall at the margin?

plain answer

The evidence is suggestive but not decisive. local state FE elasticity -0.0142 is near zero, but the 90% CI [-0.0750, +0.0466] is not contained in [-0.05, +0.05]

why it matters

Labor-market rules often help some workers while risking job loss or slower hiring for others. This test looks for that tradeoff in observable employment or unemployment data.

how the test works

It compares 1 country or place units from 1990 to 2022, using a did callaway santanna design, with fixed effects for state and year.

what was measured
What changed
  • State minimum wage
  • Federal minimum wage
What we checked
  • State total employment qcew
  • Low wage sector employment
  • Low wage employment share
what this does not prove

A single test is not the whole truth. It narrows the claim under a specific sample, time period, and method. Strong policy conclusions need the pattern to survive nearby tests, alternative data, and serious objections.

verification

3 input datasets, 0 unresolved missing series, provenance status: reproducible hash verified.

Results

engine/runs/federal_minimum_wage_employment_meta
1007550250199020062022USA
illustrative sketch · run pending
No coefficients yet. When the model fires, this chart will show state_total_employment_qcew across 1 sampled countries over 1990–2022.
The shapes above are stylised — none of the lines are real data.
Placeholder for federal_minimum_wage_employment_meta. Published chart will be generated from engine/runs/federal_minimum_wage_employment_meta/chart_data.json.

Who has skin in the game — schools predicting on this

1 school list this hypothesis as a test of their position. The chips below are school-level scoreboard outcomes, not a second hypothesis verdict.

hypothesis verdict vs scoreboard outcome

The banner verdict judges this hypothesis as written. The scoreboard asks whether each school's polarity-corrected prediction was right. Raw status is not a school win: SUPPORTED supports schools that needed SUPPORTED, but refutes schools that needed REFUTED.

Democratic Socialism (Bernsteinian revisionism + modern)wins if SUPPORTEDpartial/no-call

Pre-registration

pre-registered
first-spec commit bae09ab · 2026-04-29T22:09:42Z
run generated · 2026-05-15T19:57:07Z

US Sanders 2016/2020 $15 federal minimum wage proposal, in meta-analyses of state-level evidence, would not produce the 1.3m-job loss CBO low-end estimate; effect is closer to zero.

Falsification criterion — what would disprove this

set before the run · honoured after

This hypothesis is considered falsified if:

The hypothesis is falsified if the state-evidence elasticity implies employment losses near the CBO low-end magnitude, or if the pooled minimum-wage employment elasticity is below -0.05 at p<0.10. It is partial if the average elasticity is near zero but high-bite federal extrapolation remains weakly identified.

formal test & threshold
test:      Callaway-Sant'Anna staggered DiD on US state minimum-wage increases 1990-2022 with QCEW state-quarter employment and state/year FE; supported if pooled employment elasticity falls within [-0.05, +0.05] interval at p<0.10, contradicting CBO low-end magnitude.

Method

Template
did_callaway_santanna
Fixed effects
state, year
Clustering
state
Sample
1 countries · 1990 – 2022
Evidence type
associational

Staggered DiD across US state minimum-wage increases using QCEW state-quarter employment counts. Callaway-Sant'Anna handles cohort heterogeneity; meta-style aggregation across treatment cohorts produces effective elasticity for federal-floor scenario.

Data

VariableSourceTransform
state_total_employment_qcew
outcome
bls:CES0500000003tier 1
log
low_wage_sector_employment
outcome
bls:OEUM000000000000000001tier 1
log
low_wage_employment_share
outcome
bls:OEUM000000000000000001tier 1
share
state_minimum_wage
treatment
fred:STTMINWGCAtier 1
log
federal_minimum_wage
treatment
fred:FEDMINNFRWGtier 1
log
minimum_to_median_wage_ratio
treatment
oecd:OECD.ELS.SAEtier 2
ratio
state_unemployment_rate
control
bls:LAUST010000000000003tier 1
level
gdp_per_capita_real
control
world_bank_wdi:NY.GDP.PCAP.KDtier 2
log
log_state_population
control
world_bank_wdi:SP.POP.TOTLtier 2
log

● ready  · ● pending  · ● reconstruct-needed

Detailed result card

Result card - federal_minimum_wage_employment_meta

Verdict: PARTIAL - local state FE elasticity -0.0142 is near zero, but the 90% CI [-0.0750, +0.0466] is not contained in [-0.05, +0.05]

Pre-registration

  • Claim: US Sanders 2016/2020 $15 federal minimum wage proposal, in meta-analyses of state-level evidence, would not produce the 1.3m-job loss CBO low-end estimate; effect is closer to zero.
  • Falsification rule: The hypothesis is considered falsified if the pre-registered empirical test shows the opposite direction of the claim at conventional significance (p > 0.10), or if the primary outcome measure moves less than 10% in the claimed direction across the sample. Exact thresholds will be pinned in the variables and estimator blocks when this stub is promoted from draft.
  • Falsification test: Callaway-Sant'Anna staggered DiD on US state minimum-wage increases 1990-2022 with QCEW state-quarter employment and state/year FE; supported if pooled employment elasticity falls within [-0.05, +0.05] interval at p<0.10, contradicting CBO low-end magnitude.

Estimate

| Estimate | Treatment | Coef | SE | p | N | States | Years | | --- | --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | --- | | primary_log_employment_elasticity | log_min_wage | -0.0142 | 0.0370 | 0.702 | 561 | 51 | 2014-2024 | | employment_growth_on_minimum_wage_growth | min_wage_growth_pct | +0.0105 | 0.0124 | 0.399 | 561 | 51 | 2014-2024 | | employment_growth_on_bite_ratio | bite_ratio | -1.5743 | 1.1788 | 0.182 | 459 | 51 | 2014-2024 |

Primary interpretation: the revived local state panel points near zero, but it is too imprecise to make a clean equivalence claim against the federal-floor/CBO mapping.

Variables resolved

  • bls:QCEW_state_total_employment_panel -> state_total_employment_qcew (outcome, n=561)
  • usdol:state_minimum_wage_history -> state_minimum_wage (treatment, n=2106)
  • derived:minimum_wage_bite_ratio_subnational_panel -> minimum_to_median_wage_ratio (treatment/diagnostic, n=474)

Caveats

  • This revives the local data gate, but the hypothesis is still a draft with a generic falsification rule.
  • The runner uses state/year FE with state-clustered SEs, not a full Callaway-Sant'Anna estimator.
  • The panel covers 2014-2024, not the registered 1990-2022 state-evidence window.
  • Scoreboard posture: needs_mapping_review.

Generated by engine/runs/federal_minimum_wage_employment_meta/replication.py at 2026-05-15T19:57:07+00:00

Notes

Stub seeded from a democratic-socialist school prediction about Sanders $15 federal floor employment meta-analysis. Out-of-sample extrapolation from sub-federal increases is fragile at high bite ratios; needs human review of how state evidence maps to federal scenario.

Authored framework. Read the transparency note.