%0 Journal Article
%@ 0033-5533
%A Lindner, A
%A Zipperer, B
%A Dube, A
%A Doruk, C
%D 2019
%F discovery:10072209
%I Oxford University Press (OUP)
%J The Quarterly Journal of Economics
%N 3
%P 1405-1454
%T The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low Wage Jobs
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10072209/
%V 134
%X We estimate the eect of minimum wages on low-wage jobs using 138 prominent state-level  minimum wage changes between 1979 and 2016 in the U.S using a dierence-in-dierences approach.  We first estimate the eect of the minimum wage increase on employment changes by wage bins  throughout the hourly wage distribution. We then focus on the bottom part of the wage distribution  and compare the number of excess jobs paying at or slightly above the new minimum wage to the  missing jobs paying below it to infer the employment eect. We find that the overall number of  low-wage jobs remained essentially unchanged over the five years following the increase. At the  same time, the direct eect of the minimum wage on average earnings was amplified by modest  wage spillovers at the bottom of the wage distribution. Our estimates by detailed demographic  groups show that the lack of job loss is not explained by labor-labor substitution at the bottom of  the wage distribution. We also find no evidence of disemployment when we consider higher levels of  minimum wages. However, we do find some evidence of reduced employment in tradable sectors.  We also show how decomposing the overall employment eect by wage bins allows a transparent  way of assessing the plausibility of estimates.
%Z This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.