The disagreement among studies of the employment effects of minimum wages in the United States is well known. Less well known, and more puzzling, is the absence of agreement on what the research literature says -that is, how economists summarize the body of evidence on the employment effects of minimum wages. Summaries range from "it is now well-established that higher minimum wages do not reduce employment," to "the evidence is very mixed with effects centered on zero so there is no basis for a strong conclusion one way or the other," to "most evidence points to adverse employment effects."We explore the question of what conclusions can be drawn from the literature, focusing on the evidence using subnational minimum wage variation within the United States that has dominated the research landscape since the early 1990s. To accomplish this, we assembled the entire set of published studies in this literature and identified the core estimates that support the conclusions from each study, in most cases relying on responses from the researchers who wrote these papers.Our key conclusions are:(i) there is a clear preponderance of negative estimates in the literature; (ii) this evidence is stronger for teens and young adults as well as the less-educated; (iii) the evidence from studies of directly-affected workers points even more strongly to negative employment effects; and (iv) the evidence from studies of low-wage industries is less one-sided.
Any opinions or conclusions expressed are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Smith-Richardson Foundation, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
The disagreement among studies of the employment effects of minimum wages in the United States is well known. Less well known, and more puzzling, is the absence of agreement on what the research literature says -that is, how economists summarize the body of evidence on the employment effects of minimum wages. Summaries range from "it is now well-established that higher minimum wages do not reduce employment," to "the evidence is very mixed with effects centered on zero so there is no basis for a strong conclusion one way or the other," to "most evidence points to adverse employment effects."We explore the question of what conclusions can be drawn from the literature, focusing on the evidence using subnational minimum wage variation within the United States that has dominated the research landscape since the early 1990s. To accomplish this, we assembled the entire set of published studies in this literature and identified the core estimates that support the conclusions from each study, in most cases relying on responses from the researchers who wrote these papers.Our key conclusions are:(i) there is a clear preponderance of negative estimates in the literature; (ii) this evidence is stronger for teens and young adults as well as the less-educated; (iii) the evidence from studies of directly-affected workers points even more strongly to negative employment effects; and (iv) the evidence from studies of low-wage industries is less one-sided.
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