Anna Godoey and Michael Reich are research economists at the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. They have authored numerous studies on the effects of minimum wages. The opinions expressed in this commentary are their own.

The federal minimum wage has become a focal point of the 2020 presidential race and is gaining momentum. Almost all the Democratic candidates support a $15 minimum wage. A bill in the US House of Representatives to gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2024 has collected more than 200 cosponsors and could come up for a vote sometime this month. And states around the nation are increasingly phasing in $15 standards.

Most economists say that modest minimum wage increases have not hurt employment. Yet opponents of a $15 federal minimum wage say an increase would push us into uncharted territory when it comes to jobs. They note that such minimum wage levels have not been studied by economists, especially in states where wages are very low. That's true: Most studies of state minimum wages do not look at wages higher than $10 an hour. And, earlier this week, the Congressional Budget Office released a report estimating that a $15 federal minimum wage by 2025 would cost 1.3 million jobs.

Our research suggests otherwise.

To measure where a minimum wage might have the most impact on employment, economists use the relative minimum wage — its ratio to the median wage. A higher ratio implies a greater possible impact.

The CBO drew only on studies that looked at state-level data on wages and employment. But our study drills down to the county and metro-level data that have mainly been ignored by researchers.

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