My conclusion was that raising minimum wage gave people more money to spend (obvs), and although it could be linked to some increase in inflation, that that cost was borne over the wider economy, so those on MW still saw an meaningful increase in real terms spending power. The evidence for MW rises causing unemployment were mixed, but meta-regression analysis showed that there was significant publication bias in MW studies (preferring those that showed MW raised unemployment) and once that was accounted for, MW was neutral on unemployment. Apart, perhaps for a small effect on teenagers.

But it was a few years back that I had to look in to that, and the studies themselves are often focussed on data from decades earlier. And that’s the problem with a lot of economic research claims, while it is helpful to examine historical patterns and learn from them, it isn’t easy to isolate the confounding factors and get to some general law. I feel it’s closer to history than physics (despite the aspirations of some economists), you can learn from the past, but current society will be different in significant ways that might make things play out quite differently.