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Effects of the 1998 California Minimum Wage Increase
March 1998 · Dr. David A. Macpherson - Florida State University ·
Based upon an analysis of Labor Department data, Dr. David Macpherson finds the 1998 California minimum wage hike from $5.15 to $5.75 per hour will cause more than 25,000 workers to lose job opportunities. As a consequence, California workers will lose approximately $230 million in annual income. At the same time, minimum wage employers will see their labor costs rise by $790 million per year in order… -
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Who Are The “Low Wage” Workers?
July 1996 · Derek Neal - University of Chicago ·
The desirability of raising the minimum wage has long revolved around just one question: the effect of higher minimum wages on the overall level of employment. This report adds an important new dimension to that debate by showing that an even more critical effect of the minimum wage rests on the composition of employment — who gets the minimum wage job. Kevin Lang’s paper focuses on employment… -
The 1992 New Jersey Minimum Wage Increase: How Much Did it Affect Family Income?
May 1996 · Dr. David A. Macpherson - Florida State University ·
The vast majority of economists agree that minimum wage hikes create a tradeoff: lost jobs for some, but increased benefits for others. Recent research has investigated the losers in this tradeoff by examining the composition of job loss. After an increase, minority teens, welfare mothers, and other low-skilled adults are displaced from the workforce by middle-class teenagers who are lured to jobs by the higher wage. In… -
The Crippling Flaws in the New Jersey Fast Food Study
April 1996 · Employment Policies Institute ·
Economists have long believed that raising the minimum wage results in fewer entry-level employment opportunities and displaces the least skilled from the job market. In recent months, proponents of a higher minimum wage have returned to one study which they claim shows the opposite — that higher minimum wages do not reduce, and may even increase, employment. The New Jersey fast food study, conducted by Princeton economists… -
The Impact of the Federal Unemployment Insurance Tax Ceiling
October 1995 · Dr. Daniel Hamermesh and David Scoones - University of Texas at Austin ·
As Drs. Daniel Hamermesh and David Scoones point out in their paper, the steady erosion in the share of wages subject to taxation to fund the unemployment insurance (UI) system as led to an increased burden on low-skilled, and therefore low wage, workers: today only 1/3 of all wages are taxed to fund the UI system. Although the unemployment insurance system is nominally structured to increase the…