IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/23084.html

Estimating the Employment Effects of Recent Minimum Wage Changes: Early Evidence, an Interpretative Framework, and a Pre-Commitment to Future Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Jeffrey Clemens
  • Michael R. Strain

Abstract

This paper presents early evidence on the employment effects of state minimum wage increases enacted between January 2013 and January 2015, and offers an interpretative framework to understand why it is of interest to study recent changes in isolation. Given the ongoing transitions of many states’ minimum wage rates, we also set the stage for a pre-committed analysis of the minimum wage changes scheduled for coming years. Through 2015, we estimate that employment among young adults and young individuals with less than a completed high school education expanded modestly less quickly in states that enacted one-time or multi-phase statutory minimum wage increases than in states that enacted no minimum wage increases. Across the specifications we implement and the samples we analyze, many of our estimates are statistically indistinguishable from zero. Data on the longer-run effects of this period’s minimum wage changes will be essential for more fully assessing these changes’ effects and for drawing strong conclusions regarding how minimum wage increases affect employment in this decade’s institutional and economic environment. As data become available for the full 2016 through 2019 calendar years, we will execute and report the results of analyses that follow the road map this paper develops.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeffrey Clemens & Michael R. Strain, 2017. "Estimating the Employment Effects of Recent Minimum Wage Changes: Early Evidence, an Interpretative Framework, and a Pre-Commitment to Future Analysis," NBER Working Papers 23084, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23084
    Note: LS PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w23084.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey Clemens, 2015. "The Minimum Wage and the Great Recession: Evidence from the Current Population Survey," NBER Working Papers 21830, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    3. David Card & Alan Krueger, 1993. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," Working Papers 694, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    4. Manning, Alan, 2011. "Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 11, pages 973-1041, Elsevier.
    5. Isaac Sorkin, 2015. "Are There Long-Run Effects of the Minimum Wage?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(2), pages 306-333, April.
    6. Joseph J. Sabia & Richard V. Burkhauser & Benjamin Hansen, 2012. "Are the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Always Small? New Evidence from a Case Study of New York State," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 65(2), pages 350-376, April.
    7. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French, 2007. "Product Market Evidence on the Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 167-200.
    8. David Neumark & J. M. Ian Salas & William Wascher, 2014. "Revisiting the Minimum Wage—Employment Debate: Throwing Out the Baby with the Bathwater?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(3_suppl), pages 608-648, May.
    9. Nathaniel Baum-Snow & Byron F. Lutz, 2011. "School Desegregation, School Choice, and Changes in Residential Location Patterns by Race," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3019-3046, December.
    10. David Neumark & William Wascher, 1992. "Employment Effects of Minimum and Subminimum Wages: Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 55-81, October.
    11. Thomas MaCurdy, 2015. "How Effective Is the Minimum Wage at Supporting the Poor?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(2), pages 497-545.
    12. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French & James MacDonald, 2008. "The Minimum Wage, Restaurant Prices, and Labor Market Structure," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(3), pages 688-720.
    13. Timothy J. Bartik, 1991. "Who Benefits from State and Local Economic Development Policies?," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number wbsle.
    14. Jonathan Meer & Jeremy West, 2016. "Effects of the Minimum Wage on Employment Dynamics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(2), pages 500-522.
    15. David Powell, 2016. "Synthetic Control Estimation Beyond Case Studies Does the Minimum Wage Reduce Employment?," Working Papers 1142, RAND Corporation.
    16. Saul D. Hoffman, 2016. "Are the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Always Small? A Reanalysis of Sabia, Burkhauser, and Hansen," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 69(2), pages 295-311, March.
    17. Clemens, Jeffrey & Wither, Michael, 2019. "The minimum wage and the Great Recession: Evidence of effects on the employment and income trajectories of low-skilled workers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 53-67.
    18. Joseph J. Sabia & Richard V. Burkhauser & Benjamin Hansen, 2016. "When Good Measurement Goes Wrong," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 69(2), pages 312-319, March.
    19. Niklas Engbom & Christian Moser, 2022. "Earnings Inequality and the Minimum Wage: Evidence from Brazil," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(12), pages 3803-3847, December.
    20. Michael R. Strain & Peter Brummund, 2016. "Real and permanent minimum wages," AEI Economics Working Papers 875967, American Enterprise Institute.
    21. Daniel Aaronson, 2001. "Price Pass-Through And The Minimum Wage," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 158-169, February.
    22. Bound, John & Johnson, George, 1992. "Changes in the Structure of Wages in the 1980's: An Evaluation of Alternative Explanations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 371-392, June.
    23. Justin Wolfers, 2006. "Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1802-1820, December.
    24. French, Eric Baird & Aaronson, Daniel & Sorkin, Isaac, 2016. "Industry Dynamics and the Minimum Wage: A Putty-Clay Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 11097, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Neumark & Peter Shirley, 2022. "Myth or measurement: What does the new minimum wage research say about minimum wages and job loss in the United States?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 384-417, October.
    2. Arindrajit Dube & Attila Lindner, 2024. "Minimum Wages in the 21st Century," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 2425, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).
    3. Clemens, Jeffrey, 2017. "The Minimum Wage and the Great Recession: A Response to Zipperer and Recapitulation of the Evidence," MPRA Paper 80153, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Matthew T. Gustafson & Jason D. Kotter, 2023. "Higher Minimum Wages Reduce Capital Expenditures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(5), pages 2933-2953, May.
    5. Lordan, Grace & Neumark, David, 2018. "People versus machines: The impact of minimum wages on automatable jobs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 40-53.
    6. Neumark David, 2019. "The Econometrics and Economics of the Employment Effects of Minimum Wages: Getting from Known Unknowns to Known Knowns," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 293-329, August.
    7. José Azar & Emiliano Huet & Ioana Marinescu & Bledi Taska & Till von, 2024. "Minimum Wage Employment Effects and Labour Market Concentration," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 91(4), pages 1843-1883.
    8. Brian Bell & Stephen Machin, 2018. "Minimum Wages and Firm Value," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(1), pages 159-195.
    9. Garcia-Louzao, Jose & Tarasonis, Linas, 2023. "Wage and Employment Impact of Minimum Wage: Evidence from Lithuania," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 592-609.
    10. Medrano-Adán, Luis & Salas-Fumás, Vicente, 2023. "Do minimum wages deliver what they promise? Effects of minimum wage on employment, output, and income inequality from occupational choice theory," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 366-383.
    11. Jeffrey Clemens, 2015. "The Minimum Wage and the Great Recession: Evidence from the Current Population Survey," NBER Working Papers 21830, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Yamagishi, Atsushi, 2021. "Minimum wages and housing rents: Theory and evidence," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    13. Daniel Aaronson & Brian J Phelan, 2019. "Wage Shocks and the Technological Substitution of Low‐wage Jobs," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 1-34.
    14. Lordan, Grace & Neumark, David, 2017. "People versus machines: the impact of minimum wages on automatable," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 84060, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Okudaira, Hiroko & Takizawa, Miho & Yamanouchi, Kenta, 2019. "Minimum wage effects across heterogeneous markets," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 110-122.
    16. Link, Sebastian, 2024. "The price and employment response of firms to the introduction of minimum wages," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    17. Kim, Jiyoon & Levere, Michael & Magenheim, Ellen, 2025. "Do minimum wage increases induce changes in work behavior for people with disabilities? Evidence from the AbilityOne program," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    18. Michael R. Strain & Peter Brummund, 2016. "Real and permanent minimum wages," AEI Economics Working Papers 875967, American Enterprise Institute.
    19. Clemens, Jeffrey & Wither, Michael, 2019. "The minimum wage and the Great Recession: Evidence of effects on the employment and income trajectories of low-skilled workers," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 53-67.
    20. Sudheer Chava & Alexander Oettl & Manpreet Singh, 2023. "Does a One-Size-Fits-All Minimum Wage Cause Financial Stress for Small Businesses?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(11), pages 7095-7117, November.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nbr:nberwo:23084. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    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.