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The Economic Effects of Living Wage Laws: A Provisional Review

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Author Info
Scott Adams
David Neumark

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Abstract

Nearly 100 cities and local governments in the United States passed living wage laws since the mid-1990s. The central goal of living wages is to reduce poverty, yet they may fail to do so because of disemployment effects. We summarize and critique the existing research on the effects of living wages on wages, employment, and family income, emphasizing common findings, points of disagreement, and important questions for future research. The evidence thus far points to wage increases as well as employment losses for the least-skilled although there is disagreement about the employment effects but on net some beneficial distributional effects. The evidence also points to efficiency wage-type effects of living wage laws that may offset some of the adverse impacts on employers.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10562.

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Date of creation: Jun 2004
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10562

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J2 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor
J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Michael Reich & Peter Hall & Ken Jacobs, 2003. "Living Wage Policies at San Francisco Airport:: Impacts on Workers and Businesses," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series 1096, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley. [Downloadable!]
  2. Richard V. Burkhauser & Kenneth A. Couch & David C. Wittenburg, 1996. "Who gets what from minimum wage hikes: A re-estimation of Card and Krueger's distributional analysis in "Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage."," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 49(3), pages 547-552, April.
  3. David Neumark, 2001. "Living Wages: Protection For or Protection From Low-Wage Workers?," NBER Working Papers 8393, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Timothy J. Bartik, 2002. "Thinking about Local Living Wage Requirements," Staff Working Papers 02-76, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. David Neumark & Scott Adams, 2000. "Do Living Wage Ordinances Reduce Urban Poverty?," NBER Working Papers 7606, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. David Neumark & Mark Schweitzer & William Wascher, 1998. "The Effects of Minimum Wages on the Distribution of Family Incomes: A Non-Parametric Analysis," NBER Working Papers 6536, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2002. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-in-Differences Estimates?," NBER Working Papers 8841, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
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