UNEXPECTEDLY! Fed researchers: $15 minimum wage in Minneapolis and St. Paul boosted pay — but cost jobs.

The push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in both Minneapolis and St. Paul has successfully boosted the average worker’s hourly pay in both cities, but it has also led to sharp drops in the numbers of available jobs and hours worked, new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has found.

Many economists have reached similar conclusions about minimum wage increases in the past. Still, the size of the impacts the researchers measured — by comparing Minneapolis and St. Paul to data culled from other Minnesota cities from 2017 through 2021 — were eye-popping, especially in low-wage industries.

Especially? Really? Minimum wage laws have always put the squeeze on the entry-level positions teens need to get their first taste of the real world.