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Cited by 2,688Labor market dynamics and wage inequalityGender, Labor, and Family DynamicsHistorical Economic and Social Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 49 of the 53 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Effect of Minimum Wages on Low-Wage Jobs*

Cengiz, Doruk, Dube, Arindrajit, Lindner, Attila, Zipperer, Ben·2019·The Quarterly Journal of Economics
DOI 10.1093/qje/qjz014
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Abstract

We estimate the effect of minimum wages on low-wage jobs using 138 prominent state-level minimum wage changes between 1979 and 2016 in the United States using a difference-in-differences approach. We first estimate the effect of the minimum wage increase on employment changes by wage bins throughout the hourly wage distribution. We then focus on the bottom part of the wage distribution and compare the number of excess jobs paying at or slightly above the new minimum wage to the missing jobs paying below it to infer the employment effect. We find that the overall number of low-wage jobs remained essentially unchanged over the five years following the increase. At the same time, the direct effect of the minimum wage on average earnings was amplified by modest wage spillovers at the bottom of the wage distribution. Our estimates by detailed demographic groups show that the lack of job loss is not explained by labor-labor substitution at the bottom of the wage distribution. We also find no evidence of disemployment when we consider higher levels of minimum wages. However, we do find some evidence of reduced employment in tradeable sectors. We also show how decomposing the overall employment effect by wage bins allows a transparent way of assessing the plausibility of estimates.

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Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Card, 1994, Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Fast Food Industries, American Economic Review, 84, 772
  2. Dickens, 1998, Estimating the Effect of Minimum Wages on Employment from the Distribution of Wages: A Critical View, Labour Economics, 5, 109, 10.1016/S0927-5371(97)00027-4 · DOI

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Metadata

Authors
Cengiz, D., Dube, A., Lindner, A., & Zipperer, B.
Affiliations
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
  • University of Massachusetts, Amherst, National Bureau of Economic Research, Institute of Labor Economics
  • Institute for Fiscal Studies (GB)
  • Economic Policy Institute (US)
ORCID
Venue
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2019-05-02
Volume
134
Issue
3
Pages
1405-1454
ISSN
  • 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
  • 1531-4650
DOI
10.1093/qje/qjz014
OpenAlex
W2942870997
Cited by
2,688
References
53
Citations by year
2026: 675 · 2025: 660 · 2024: 502 · 2023: 303 · 2022: 247 · 2021: 169 · 2020: 76 · 2019: 30
FWCI
164.27
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model (vor)
Locations
  • The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Russell Sage Foundation
  • Sage Foundation
  • Washington State University
  • Laura and John Arnold Foundation
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Historical Economic and Social Studies
Keywords
minimum wage, low-wage employment, employment effects, wage spillovers, wage distribution, demographic groups

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