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Effects of Minimum Wages on Teenage Employment, Enrollment and Idleness
August 1995 · Dr. David Neumark - Michigan State University ·
To assess the desirability of higher minimum wages we typically focus on aggregate employment effects — how much a particular increase would lower overall employment. The current views on this question range from no job loss (according to the Clinton Administration) to a loss perhaps as high as 3 percent for teens (the workers most affected by the minimum wage) for every 10 percent increase in the… -
The Consequences of Indexing the Minimum Wage to Average Wages in the U.S. Economy
May 1995 · Dr. David Macpherson - Florida State University Dr. William Even - Miami University ·
Two consistent themes have echoed throughout the current debate over the future of the minimum wage: minimum-wage workers today have been left behind by the overall growth in wages; and, mandated wage increases are desirable because most minimum wage workers are adults and have families to support. Both of these assertions are based on simplistic views of the workforce. Neither stands up to close scrutiny, as this… -
Jobs Taken by Mothers Moving From Welfare to Work: And the Effects of Minimum Wages on this Transition
February 1995 · Dr. Peter D. Brandon - University of Wisconsin ·
Raising the earnings of welfare recipients, primarily women attempting to move into the workforce, remains the chief obstacle in reforming the welfare system. One widely discussed option has been to raise the minimum wage. Advocates of higher minimum wages call for an increase in order to make work more attractive and create sufficient monetary incentive for individuals to leave the welfare system and move into the workforce.… -
Minimum Wage Laws and the Distribution of Employment
January 1995 · Kevin Lang - Boston University ·
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…