Critics call it a job-killer. Proponents say it’s a long-overdue move to share near-record corporate profits with workers who haven’t seen a mandated wage increase in more than 10 years, a record stretch. And others say it’s warranted in higher-cost states, but makes no sense in states where the price of housing, groceries and transportation is lower.

Raising the minimum wage evokes a passionate response from all sides, and the argument is growing more heated now that the House of Representatives has voted to more than double the federal minimum age from $7.25 an hour to $15 hourly by 2024. State by state, the minimum wage varies dramatically – from the federally mandated cellar of $7.25 in a swath of Southern states, plus rural states such as Idaho and Utah, to $11.10 in New York and up to $12 an hour in California. As of this year, 21 states require businesses (with some exceptions, such as tipped jobs) to pay above the federal minimum.

Was it worth it for those states to raise the minimum wage? Data collected by U.S. News as well as detailed studies by economists indicates it was – or at least that hiking the minimum wage has not hurt the state economies.

The states with the three highest minimum wages – California, Massachusetts and Washington – also rank first, second and third, respectively, in U.S. News’ Best States rankings for the best business environment. Arizona, with the nation’s sixth-highest minimum wage, also makes the top 10 for business environment.

Washington, Oregon and Arizona rank first, third and fifth in U.S. News’ rankings for business growth, while having among the highest minimum wages in the country. California, New York, Massachusetts and Washington also make U.S. News top six for venture capital investment. Oregon, Arizona and Washington also make the top 10 for job growth.

Cost of living does appear to influence state minimum wage levels, according to a U.S. News analysis, with lower-cost states (such as Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma) generally keeping to the bare federal minimum, and higher-cost ones (such as California, New York and Alaska) hewing higher. But in cases where states offer a higher minimum wage than the cost of living would indicate (Arizona, Minnesota and Michigan), the state economies are not worse for wear. In addition to Arizona’s high rankings, Michigan ranked 16th in both overall growth and job growth, and second in the growth of its young population. Minnesota, meanwhile, ranks fourth in labor force participation among the states, according to U.S. News’ rankings.

A recent economic journal paper – considered the most comprehensive modern look at the impact of state and local minimum wage increases – analyzes 138 minimum wage increases over the past five years. The result? Pretty much what the proponents intended, says Arindrajit Dube, a professor at the University of Massachusetts—Amherst and one of the study’s authors.

“What we found was these policies have the intended consequence of raises wages at the bottom” of the income scale and “have some degree of spillover beyond the minimum wage,” since other employers tend to hike their own wages when the minimum wage increases, Dube says.

“At the same time, there’s no overall evidence we found that the number of low-wage jobs are actually reduced,” he adds. “We did not find there was any adverse impact on employment.” The one exception, he says, was in low-wage manufacturing jobs – but notes that those workers tended to find jobs elsewhere.

There are other business variables, too, experts say. For example, while a company might see lower wages as a way to save on labor costs, the opposite might occur if wages are so low that people leave. Recruiting and training new workers takes management time and money – and it might ultimately cost less to pay people more so turnover is lower, they say.

A Congressional Budget Office report released in July, however, indicates that a hike to $15 an hour may indeed leave some people out of a job. The study by the nonpartisan panel predicted that 1.3 million workers who would otherwise be employed would be jobless in an average week in 2025, should the $15 minimum take effect. That’s equivalent to a 0.8% reduction in the number of employed workers.

However, the same study found that 17 million workers who would otherwise be paid less than $15 an hour would have their wages increase. Another 10 million workers whose wages would be slightly above the minimum wage would also make more, the CBO study said.

And that’s where it gets more complicated, analysts say. Is it worth it – to both individuals and to the state economies – to employ more people, even if the wages aren’t enough to live on? And should it be left more to the states instead of the federal government?

Making $15 an hour in California, for example, won’t take you as far as the same hourly wage in Alabama. “Even more than state-by-state, a county-by-county” approach would be more fair, says Rachel Greszler, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that advocates for free markets and low taxes. In a city, for example, that raises its minimum wage well above the national standard, low-skilled workers will be pushed out of city borders. “If you have this nationwide, they won’t have anywhere to go,” she says.

Donald Grimes, senior research area specialist at the University of Michigan’s Economic Growth Institute, argues that the minimum wage should vary by state, hitting a sweet spot of about 60 percent of the state’s median wage. That standard, he says, “will ensure that our lowest wage workers will have the same standard of living no matter where they live, and will minimize any potential loss of jobs due to a higher rate.”

But without a reasonable national standard, more people will be living in poverty, even while employed, says Heidi Shierholz, leader of the Economic Policy Institute’s policy team and the former chief economist to the Labor secretary during the Obama administration. “It’s just that basically, there is no county in the United States where somebody can make it month to month” on minimum wage now – even an individual without children, she says.

While the public impression of a minimum wage employee might be a teenager working at a fast-food restaurant, Shierholz says, many older adults work for the minimum as well. There are more people 55 and older earning minimum wage than those 19 or younger, she notes, and the average age of a minimum-wage employee is 35.

That not only hurts those individuals, advocates say, but also puts other strains on the economy, including burdens on the state and federal government.

America’s economy is heavily consumer driven, with about 68 percent fueled by consumer spending. People who are barely making enough for necessities, then, aren’t contributing to the economy by patronizing the dry cleaner, local restaurant or movie theater – meaning those establishments don’t need to hire as many people, experts explain.

And people earning low wages may end up costing the taxpayer money in other ways, such as by being on Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (also known as food stamps). A UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education study from 2015 found, for example, than more than half of fast-food workers receive some sort of public assistance.

Higher minimum wages might increase the costs of goods, says Pete Vargas, state organizing director for the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United of Michigan, which supports an increase in the minimum wage.

But “you either contribute to it at the front end, or you contribute to it at the back end” by subsidizing basic necessities for low-wage workers, Vargas says. Michigan is now in the middle of a court battle over the minimum wage. Seeking to keep a minimum wage increase off the ballot as a voter referendum, the Michigan State Legislature last year passed its own wage increase.

Then, in the lame duck session, the legislature amended their own bill, weakening it. The outgoing GOP governor signed it before the new, Democratic governor took office in January. The issue is now before the Michigan Supreme Court. The minimum wage in the Wolverine State is $9.45 an hour.