TY  - JOUR
TI  - The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low Wage Jobs
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz014
SP  - 1405
AV  - public
EP  - 1454
JF  - The Quarterly Journal of Economics
N1  - This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher?s terms and conditions.
SN  - 0033-5533
ID  - discovery10072209
VL  - 134
N2  - 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.
A1  - Lindner, A
A1  - Zipperer, B
A1  - Dube, A
A1  - Doruk, C
Y1  - 2019/08//
PB  - Oxford University Press (OUP)
IS  - 3
ER  -