EPI Research (Page 5 )

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  Survey of US Economists on a $15 Federal Minimum Wage

  March 2019

  Across the nation, lawmakers continue to grapple with the viability and impact of increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The debate has become heated and some states and cities have already enacted increases they believe will benefit workers. While the true impact of these increases is still being discovered, recent surveys of businesses, franchises and other groups suggest that such minimum wage raises…
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  The Impact of a $15 Minimum Wage: Up to 2 Million Jobs Lost

  January 2019

  Speaker Nancy Pelosi boasted that a $15 minimum wage would pass “in the first 100 hours” of a new Democratic-controlled Congress. It might be good politics, but is a $15 minimum wage good economics? This month, the Employment Policies Institute released its first-ever book on the $15 minimum wage, “Fighting $15: An Evaluation of the Evidence and a Case for…
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  Fighting $15?: An Evaluation of the Evidence and a Case for Caution

  January 2019

  Click here for a policy brief of the book's findings. In his 2013 State of the Union, President Obama called for a 25 percent increase in the federal minimum wage, to $9 an hour. Five years later, the Democratic Party promised a minimum wage increase of more than 100 percent, to $15 an hour. This radical evolution in what…
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  Helping Without Hurting: The Long-run Effects of Anti-Poverty Policies on Disadvantaged Neighborhoods

  June 2018

  Decades of economic research and policymaking have focused on minimum wages, tax credits, and welfare programs as essential tools to improve the lives of struggling and disadvantaged Americans. In this new study, economists David Neumark and Brittany Bass of the University of California, Irvine, and Brian Asquith of the National Bureau of Economic research, measure the longrun effects of minimum wages, the Earned Income Tax…
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  The Impact of a $15 Minimum Wage in New Jersey

  May 2018

  Proponents of a higher wage in New Jersey argue that a $15 wage will pull families out of poverty while saving taxpayers money. For instance, Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto argued that, “[a $15 minimum wage] will be an integral component in our efforts to stop the decline in the middle class and lift working families out of poverty.” But mounting evidence, including a new analysis…
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  The Employment Effects of Eliminating the Tip Credit in Michigan

  May 2018

  In 2014, legislation to raise Michigan’s minimum wage received bipartisan support in the state legislature, and the state’s wage floor rose to $9.25 at the start of 2018. The base wage paid to tipped employees such as restaurant servers was increased from $3.38 to $3.52; these employees are still legally-guaranteed the same full minimum wage as all other employees. This fall, voters may consider at…