The Center for Economics & Public Policy presents

"Using Federal Minimum Wages to Identify the Impact of Minimum Wages on Employment and Earnings Across the U.S. States"
with Yona Rubinstein, Brown University

Tuesday, October 1, 2013
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Social Science Plaza B, Room 3218

The magnitude of the impact of minimum wages on employment is a hotly debated topic in policy and academic circles. Rubinstein uses cross-state differences in the impact of adjustments in federal minimum wages on effective minimum wages in each state - the maximum of federal and state minimum wages - to reassess this question and explain biases in past research. A rise in the federal minimum wage will have a larger impact on a state’s effective minimum wage in states in which federal minimum wages are binding. Using CPS data for 1977-2007 Rubinstein finds notable wage impacts and large corresponding disemployment effects, yet only when the differential influences of federal minimum wages are utilized to instrument for state wage floors.  

Part of the Population, Society and Inequality Fall 2013 Colloquium Series. Jointly sponsored by the Center for Demographic and Social Analysis. For further information, please contact Sylvia Lotito, slotito@uci.edu or 949-824-3344.