August 1995
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…
June 1995
It is no secret that the hospitality industry (restaurants and hotels) provides valuable opportunities to inexperienced workers, especially those seeking additional formal education. More than one in every five “first paid jobs” is in the hospitality sector. More than 40% of all youth employed in the 1980s had held at least one job in the hospitality industry. In the present study, Bradley Schiller of American…
May 1995
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,…
February 1995
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…
January 1995
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…
August 1994
University of Massachusetts, Amherst economist Simon Rottenberg’s examination of mandates in employment in employment is a stark reminder of the potentially devastating effects of mandated employer-provided health insurance. Commissioned by the Employment Policies Institute, the study not only points out the difference among various occupational categories but explains how these factors determine differences in the size and composition of compensation packages. In the context of…