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Do Living Wage Ordinances Reduce Urban Poverty?

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  • David Neumark
  • Scott Adams

Abstract

Many cities in the United States have recently passed living wage ordinances. These ordinances typically mandate that businesses under contract with the city or, in some cases, receiving assistance from the city, must pay their workers a wage sufficient to support a family financially. To date, there has been no empirical analysis of the actual effects of living wages on the expected beneficiaries low-wage workers and their families. In this paper, we estimate the effects of city living wage ordinances on the wages and hours of workers in cities that have adopted such legislation. We also look at the effects of the ordinances on employment and poverty rates in these cities. Our findings indicate that living wage ordinances boost wages of low-wage workers. The estimated elasticities are small, however, which seems consistent with the fact that living wages have limited coverage, and may also have limited compliance and enforcement. In addition to the wage effects, we find weak negative hours effects of living wage ordinances on low-wage workers, and strong negative employment effects. Finally, our estimates of the effects of living wages on poverty rates indicate that living wage ordinances may help to achieve modest reductions in urban poverty.

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  • David Neumark & Scott Adams, 2000. "Do Living Wage Ordinances Reduce Urban Poverty?," NBER Working Papers 7606, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7606
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    1. 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.
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    8. David Neumark & DMark Schweitzer & DaWilliam Wascher, 2004. "Minimum Wage Effects throughout the Wage Distribution," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    9. David Neumark & William Wascher, 2002. "Do Minimum Wages Fight Poverty?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(3), pages 315-333, July.
    10. Charles Brown & Curtis Gilroy & Andrew Kohen, 1983. "Time-Series Evidence of the Effect of the Minimum Wage on Youth Employment and Unemployment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 18(1), pages 3-31.
    11. Ashenfelter, Orley & Smith, Robert S, 1979. "Compliance with the Minimum Wage Law," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(2), pages 333-350, April.
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    Cited by:

    1. David Neumark, 2004. "Living Wages: Protection for or Protection from Low-Wage Workers?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 58(1), pages 27-51, October.
    2. Scott Adams & David Neumark, 2005. "Living Wage Effects: New and Improved Evidence," Economic Development Quarterly, , vol. 19(1), pages 80-102, February.
    3. Neumark, David & Thompson, Matthew & Brindisi, Francesco & Koyle, Leslie & Reck, Clayton, 2012. "Simulating the Economic Impacts of Living Wage Mandates Using New Public and Administrative Data: Evidence for New York City," IZA Discussion Papers 7113, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    4. David Neumark & Matthew Thompson & Leslie Koyle, 2012. "The effects of living wage laws on low-wage workers and low-income families: What do we know now?," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-34, December.
    5. Mark D. Brenner, 2004. "The Economic Impact of Living Wage Ordinances," Working Papers wp80, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    6. Marchand, J. & Smeeding, T., 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, Elsevier.
      • Marchand, Joseph & Smeeding, Timothy, 2016. "Poverty and Aging," Working Papers 2016-11, University of Alberta, Department of Economics, revised 20 Nov 2016.
    7. Adams, Scott & Neumark, David, 2005. "The effects of living wage laws: Evidence from failed and derailed living wage campaigns," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 177-202, September.
    8. Scott Adams & David Neumark, 2004. "When Do Living Wages Bite?," NBER Working Papers 10561, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Alexandros Karakitsios & Manos Matsaganis, 2018. "Minimum Wage Effects on Poverty and Inequality," DEOS Working Papers 1801, Athens University of Economics and Business.
    10. Daniel Fairchild, 2004. "Does the minimum wage help the poor?," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 31-42, September.
    11. David Neumark & Daiji Kawaguchi, 2001. "Attrition Bias in Economic Relationships Estimated with Matched CPS Files," NBER Working Papers 8663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Scott Adams & David Neumark, 2004. "The Economic Effects of Living Wage Laws: A Provisional Review," NBER Working Papers 10562, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Biglan, Anthony & Cody, Christine, 2013. "Integrating the human sciences to evolve effective policies," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 90(S), pages 152-162.
    14. Ahn, Tom, 2011. "Distributional impacts of a local living wage increase with ability sorting," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(3), pages 283-286, September.

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    JEL classification:

    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

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