Increasing minimum wage puts more jobs at risk of automation
Increasing minimum wage puts more jobs at risk of automation
- August 14, 2017
- David Neumark, economist, explains in MIT Technology Review
-----
When the minimum wage goes up, the robots come for people's jobs. That's the upshot of a paper published today on the National Bureau of Economic Research's website (abstract, full PDF paywalled), which analyzed how changes to the minimum wage from 1980 to 2015 affected low-skill jobs in various sectors of the U.S. economy.
The new analysis, by Grace Lorden of the London School of Economics and David Neumark
at the University of California, Irvine, suggests that there's a similar negative
effect among people who work minimum-wage jobs that machines can do. The researchers
found that across all industries they measured, raising minimum wage by $1 equates
to a decline in "automatable" jobs—things like packing boxes or operating a sewing
machine—of 0.43 percent.
For the full story, please visit https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/608636/increasing-minimum-wage-puts-more-jobs-at-risk-of-automation/.
-----
Would you like to get more involved with the social sciences? Email us at communications@socsci.uci.edu to connect.
Related News Items
- Careet RightWhat to know about Oklahoma's proposed minimum wage increase
- Careet RightEconomists have found an answer to slowing cognitive decline: avoid retiring early, study finds
- Careet RightReopening the minimum wage debate
- Careet RightYamaha HQ leaving California for Georgia
- Careet RightCalifornia's strict regulations may frustrate business starts