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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina s congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Myorkas.

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Economist Challenges Job-loss Predictions in Raising Minimum Wage

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Tuesday, September 13, 2016   

DENVER – Findings from a study on the potential impact of raising Colorado's minimum wage are being challenged by economists citing faulty assumptions and questionable research methods. The report, released by the conservative think tank Common Sense Policy Roundtable, claims raising wages could lead to significant job loss in the state.

Chris Stiffler, lead author and economist with the Colorado Fiscal Institute said the report is misleading and falls short of common academic standards.

"This is a big issue that's going to influence a lot of people across Colorado and a lot of communities, and I think voters need to know the facts," he said. "They shouldn't get away without having rigorous, academically approved and tested findings, when you're going to start throwing numbers around like 90,000 job-loss figures."

In November, Coloradans get to vote on a ballot initiative that would raise the state's minimum wage from just over $8 an hour to $12 an hour by 2020. Stiffler said nearly half a million Coloradans would be affected by the measure, and if approved, 86 percent of workers to get a raise would be age 20 or older.

Stiffler said the Roundtable study fails to provide basic information standards for peer-reviewable research, such as statistical margins for error, and cherry picks previous research findings in a way that paints a worst-case scenario.

Stiffler's team tested the report's prediction model using real-world data from 2006, the last time Colorado raised its minimum wage. He said using the Roundtable formula, Colorado should have lost 23,000 jobs, but the state actually added more than 71,000 jobs.

"Employment grew pretty steadily in 2007 and 2008 after an increase in the minimum wage," he noted. "So his model was well off on predicting job-loss numbers."

According to the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, the state's current minimum wage isn't enough for single adults working full-time to meet basic needs in most parts of the state, and Colorado parents can't support even one child without turning to public assistance.


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