Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Comments on Aaron Yelowitz, "Santa Fe's Living Wage Ordinance and the Labor Market"

Contents:

Author Info

  • Jeannette Wicks-Lim
  • Robert Pollin
Registered author(s):

    Abstract

    In a new study by Yelowitz “Santa Fe’s Wage Ordinance and the Labor Market,” dated September 23, 2005 (published by the Employment Policies Institute) Yelowitz claims to have demonstrated that the Santa Fe living wage ordinance is responsible for significant, negative consequences for Santa Fe’s least educated residents, including a 9.0 percentage point increase in the city’s unemployment rate among such workers. However, he derives these findings through a presentation of evidence that is misleading and incomplete, misusing the available data. We replicate and extend Yelowitz’s model to look at job growth specifically, and, using the same data as Yelowitz, we find that the Santa Fe ordinance did not produce any decline at all in the availability of jobs. Moreover, our estimates suggest that the living wage ordinance did increase earned income for the average worker affected by the ordinance, even if we accept Yelowitz’s estimates on reduced hours of work. In short, even while relying on Yelowitz’s own model and estimates, we find that, to date, the Santa Fe ordinance has succeeded in achieving its main aims: to improve the quality of jobs for low-wage workers in Santa Fe without reducing their employment opportunities.

    Download Info

    If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
    File URL: http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_101-150/WP108.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst in its series Working Papers with number wp108.

    as in new window
    Length:
    Date of creation: 2005
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:uma:periwp:wp108

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: 418 N Pleasant St, Amherst MA 01002
    Phone: (413) 545-6355
    Fax: (413) 545-2921
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.peri.umass.edu/
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords:

    Find related papers by JEL classification:

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

    No references listed on IDEAS
    You can help add them by filling out this form.

    Citations

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uma:periwp:wp108

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Judy Fogg).

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.