The UW research team that is studying Seattle's minimum wage ordinance released a report earlier this week that provides baseline employer survey and worker interview information. (There will be more reports from the team as time goes on.)

Under the ordinance, the minimum wage in the city will gradually increase to $15 (how quickly depends on size of employer and whether certain benefits are offered). It went into effect on April 1, 2015, with a minimum wage of either $10 or $11.

The surveys and interviews were conducted between January and May of 2015, so respondents were either already working under the new rules or anticipating them. As the report notes, "Because they were conducted at such an early stage in the process of raising the minimum wage, they are not designed to reveal the actual impact of the minimum wage." Instead, this report represents a baseline against which "future responses can be compared."

Some interesting points from the report:

• 567 employers responded to the survey; 88.1 percent of them have fewer than 500 employees and 9.5 percent are franchises.
• 62 percent of employers said they would raise prices in response to the higher minimum wage.
• In the food and accommodation sector, 85.3 percent said they would raise prices.
• 30 percent of all employers said they would add service charges or fees.
• Only 5.6 percent of food and accommodation employers said they "do not plan to add a service charge or raise prices."
• 30 percent of all employers said they would reduce the number of employees.
• 27 percent of all employers said they would limit raises.
• 11 percent of all employers said they would leave Seattle.
• 21.9 percent of all employers said they anticipate improved productivity.

The report also includes a section analyzing prices. This information was provided earlier this year, when the team released a preliminary look at the impact on prices. (I wrote about that report here.) The team found price impacts mostly in restaurants. But, as the report notes,

In some cases, price increases may be yet to come, particularly as businesses continue to face minimum wage increases each year. In other cases, however, the absence of price effects shows the relative unimportance of labor in a business's cost structure.

The report specifies that its findings "do not examine the short- or long-run impacts of the Ordinance on businesses, workers, or the local economy." In other words, it's too early to tell how this will shake out. Similarly, economist Adam Ozimek wrote last month,

As state and local minimum wages climb to historically high levels, the signs of economic strain should become more visible. But caution must be taken here. For example, the minimum wage was hiked for the City of Seattle, but only metro division data are available at regular frequency, of which the city makes up 21% of the population. This doesn’t mean the effects of minimum wage hikes won’t be apparent in the data, just that they will be biased downward. Even the data we do have must be interpreted with caution.

Additionally, two initiatives have been filed this year that would increase the state minimum wage: I-1433 and I-1518. I wonder how these possible increases would affect the ability of researchers to tease out the economic impacts of Seattle's wage increase.

(For more on the minimum wage, see these reports.)