The Bloomberg administration released a report this morning showing that the City Council’s living wage bill could cost the city some 13,000 jobs but a number of economists are saying that the city’s methodology was so flawed that it was almost “deliberately misleading,” in the words of James Parrot of the Fiscal Policy Institute.

According to Mr. Parrot, the study includes two data points that have been or will be written out of the legislation–one which exempts some developments in the outer boroughs that receive a tax exemption, and another which raises the threshold of the kinds of projects that would be forced to pay a living wage.

“The study’s real estate analysis is so fraught with dubious assumptions it should be nominated for a science fiction award,” he said.  “It takes place in an unrecognizable New York City, where real estate values never rise and 40,000 retail jobs weren’t added over the past decade. Who would have thought that $10 an hour wages could sap the animal spirits completely out of real estate developers?” Read More