Fox’s Steve Doocy cites out-of-date study to argue against federal minimum wage increase

Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy cited an out-of-date study to attack the idea of an increase to the federal minimum wage. In a segment about potential presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) tweeting in support of a federal minimum wage increase, Doocy said that when “Seattle experimented” with increasing the local minimum wage to $15 per hour, “a study came out that showed that people wound up with less money in their pockets because employers cut employees’ hours because the wage was so high.”

The 2017 study that Doocy appears to be referencing “estimates [that] the average low-wage worker in the city lost $125 a month because of the hike in the minimum" wage. As The Washington Post reported, “The paper's conclusions contradict years of research on the minimum wage.” Sure enough, within months, other papers were published that “underscored the limitations of the Seattle study.” More significantly, Doocy failed to mention that the authors of that 2017 study actually published new research a year later that “found that the increase added about $10 per week on average to the earnings of low-income workers through 2016, even while reducing weekly hours slightly.” According to CNN, the findings also showed that “employee turnover decreased, which the authors believe suggests that employers tried harder to retain their most productive staff members as wages went up.” While there have been critics of the study, it did overall find more positive results than its predecessor, which Doocy ignored.

From the January 16 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:

STEVE DOOCY (CO-HOST): I remember Seattle experimented with this and they jacked up the federal -- the local minimum wage, and, I believe, a study came out that showed that people wound up with less money in their pockets because employers cut employees' hours because the wage was so high.