The minimum wage may sound like a good idea, but the evidence shows Latinos are getting a raw deal.

In public policy, an ounce of results is worth a pound of good intentions. Unfortunately, it’s the exact opposite in politics. Every time an election rolls around, politicians and campaigns sweep through on a wave of good feelings and empty promises, while the rest of us are left to face the unintended consequences. Nowhere is that truer than in the minimum wage debate.

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The minimum wage is popular, and for obvious reasons. After all, who wouldn’t want to “give America a raise?” But what most people don’t know is that it’s not that simple. The minimum wage is a blunt instrument – “pay this worker a higher wage, or else” – and using it doesn’t always work out the way we want it to. That “or else” can come back to bite us. More often than not, every new dollar in one worker’s salary after a minimum wage hike comes right out of the salaries of his laid off coworkers.

Some get a raise, but layoffs loom closer on the horizon: in Colorado alone, the Common Sense Policy Roundtable has forecasted 90,000 jobs will be lost by 2022. In cities like Seattle, who have raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour, restaurants and small businesses are being forced to lay off employees. Many jobs – as the “Robots for a $15 Minimum Wage” page on Facebook is eager to point out – will simply become automated.

These are critical trade-offs, and we have to consider them carefully. Using a new study by The LIBRE Institute, we can take a closer look at how minimum wage hikes affect U.S. Hispanics, and decide whether proposed minimum wage hikes are worth the consequences. According to our research, the consequences of raising the minimum wage are not equally distributed across the whole population. Young people are particularly at risk of losing their jobs. People with lower levels of education face a higher risk of lost employment than people with college degrees. Wherever the minimum wage is high relative to average wages, these effects are most severe. For U.S. Hispanics, these effects are even more pronounced than for the general population. If you knew that your job was more at risk than everyone else’s, would you still vote for such a high minimum wage?

If the recent election is any indication, you probably wouldn’t.

Colorado voters approved Amendment 70 by a margin of 55 to 45 percent this November, which will raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. But not everyone in Colorado voted the same way. Denver County, with its highly educated, highly paid populace, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the hike. According to our research, that’s not surprising. Their highly educated, highly paid population is unlikely to be badly affected by it. Yuma, Cheyenne, and Kiowa County, on the other hand, voted overwhelmingly to reject it. They lost, and it’s likely that they will face serious employment shocks as a result of the measure. All in all, 32 counties voted to raise the minimum wage, and 32 voted against it. A one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work.

Payton Alexander is a Policy Analyst at The LIBRE Institute and he has conducted a study called Free the Wage regarding the negative effects the minimum wage has on Hispanic employment.