EPI Research (Page 7)

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  Can Raising the Minimum Wage Reduce Poverty and Hardship?

  April 2012 • Dr. Joseph Sabia, Robert Nielsen

  In 2011, the Census Bureau reported that the country’s poverty rate was 15.1 percent—the highest rate in nearly 20 years. One policy prescription for this problem is an increase in the federal minimum wage. It’s an intuitive thought: Raise the wages of the lowest paid workers, and poverty rates are sure to fall. Unfortunately, the empirical evidence hasn’t borne this out. Instead, multiple studies have demonstrated […]
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  Tip Credits and Employment in the U.S. Restaurant Industry

  November 2011 • David Macpherson, William Even

  Few parts of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) are more poorly understood than provisions relating to tipped employees. Though the federal minimum wage is set at $7.25 an hour, the FLSA permits tipped employees to be paid a cash wage of $2.13 an hour—so long as the employee earns at least the federal minimum of $7.25 when their tips are included. The difference between the […]
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  An Offer You Can’t Refuse: Estimating the Coverage Effects of the 2010 Affordable Care Act

  July 2011 • Richard Burkhauser, Sean Lyons, Kosali Simon

  Proponents of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the companion Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, known collectively as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) , expect that the law will substantially expand health insurance coverage to the 17.6 percent of currently uninsured, non-elderly working Americans, without dramatically changing the terms under which the currently insured now receive their health insurance. Conversely, […]
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  Unequal Harm: Racial Disparities in the Employment Consequences of Minimum Wage Increases

  May 2011 • William Even, David Macpherson

  When the Great Recession’s negative effect on the U.S. labor market was strongest, the national unemployment rate stood at 10.1 percent—a depth last seen in June 1983. But the greatest amount of pain was felt by younger and more vulnerable workers—though not in equal amounts. For instance, the unemployment rate for 16-to-19 year-olds reached 27.1 per-cent at the recession’s trough. For white teens, the figure was […]
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  Just Getting By?: Income Dependence on Minimum Wage Jobs

  March 2011

  Increases in the minimum wage remain popular with legislators and the public in part due to misconceptions about who earns the minimum. The most popular and seemingly persuasive argument for minimum wage hikes is that adult minimum wage workers can’t afford to maintain their families at those wage levels. Census Bureau data confirm that approximately 40 percent of the beneficiaries of the most recent federal minimum wage […]
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  Is There an Economic Consensus in Favor of Wage Mandates?

  January 2011

  In debates over whether to raise the minimum wage, proponents often try to boost their credibility by referencing a group of 15 prominent economists who support a minimum wage increase, as well as approximately 650 additional economists in agreement. This list, first compiled and released by the Economic Policy Institute (a labor-backed organization), is still cited frequently to counter the claims of labor economists who[…]