IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/atlecj/v53y2025i1d10.1007_s11293-025-09824-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating the Minimum Wage’s Spillover Effect on Below Median Local Housing Rents

Author

Listed:
  • Krieg Tidemann

    (Niagara University)

Abstract

This paper offers empirical evidence on minimum wage spillovers into rental housing markets. Minimum wage spillovers may arise from two channels shifting housing demand: migration or minimum wage impacts on low-wage worker real income. Reduced-form estimation and a pooled event study exploit state-by-year variation from 1985—2023 in effective minimum wages to estimate the minimum wage’s impact on below median housing rents and low-wage worker population shares. The empirical strategies rely on rent data from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Fair Market Rents series and American Community Survey population shares data from the United States Census Bureau. The minimum wage has an inconclusive effect on low-wage worker population shares while reducing rents. A $1 minimum wage increase reduces below-median monthly rents by 0.7 – 2 percentage points. In contrast to the limited existing evidence for the minimum wage raising local housing prices, this paper’s evidence of the minimum wage decreasing below-median local housing rents contributes to the literature by suggesting a heterogeneous housing price response to increasing the minimum wage. It also offers new evidence affirming that higher minimum wages improve housing affordability.

Suggested Citation

  • Krieg Tidemann, 2025. "Estimating the Minimum Wage’s Spillover Effect on Below Median Local Housing Rents," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 53(1), pages 37-52, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:53:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11293-025-09824-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s11293-025-09824-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11293-025-09824-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11293-025-09824-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:atlecj:v:53:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s11293-025-09824-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.