>They concluded, “Contrary to the central prediction of the textbook model ... we find no evidence that the rise in New Jersey’s minimum wage reduced employment at fast-food restaurants in the state.”
>Austrians argue that that empirical data itself is insufficient to describe economics; that consequently empirical data cannot falsify economic theory.
The 1994 Card & Krueger study that the journalist cited was based on phone surveys of fast food managers.
A followup 2006 study by Neumark & Wascher[1] re-examined the C&K study using actual payroll records instead of surveys and it concluded that C&K got the conclusion backwards. Payroll records showed that employment did indeed go down which matches econ101.
(Of course, someone else can look at the Neumark & Wascher study to see if they had flaws in analyzing the data so that this debate can continue without any resolution.)
So a phone survey vs. the life work of multiple Nobel economists?
As far as evidence, if you've ever run a restaurant, you know what happens when you increase labor costs by 15%? -- You don't have a restaurant anymore. Or you end up with this:
This doesn't mean quite what you think it does. The Nobel prize in economics is unrelated to the other Nobel prizes. It is not awarded by the Nobel committee. It is given by the central bank of Sweden to economists that it likes.
Is the latter a real concern for fast food outlets? That image shows an interface which is available in multiple languages, which frees up the humans in the establishment to serve the incoming orders more efficiently. In my experiences with those automated screens, there is still the option to go to the counter and order from a human if you really wanted to.
Is this universally a good thing? I don't know. It certainly reduces the role of employees to just process orders as fast as possible, where before there may have been a moderation on order flow by virtue of having to wait in line to speak to a human.
What happens when all restaurants have those costs increase at the same time, and have to increase their prices at the same time is way less clear than this.
This is really the heart of it, people who are libertarian/pro free-market/Austrian economists simply reject any evidence that challenges their assertions about economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology#Austrian_economics
>Austrians argue that that empirical data itself is insufficient to describe economics; that consequently empirical data cannot falsify economic theory.