TY  - JOUR
AU  - Adams,Scott
AU  - Neumark,David
TI  - The Effects of Living Wage Laws: Evidence from Failed and Derailed Living Wage Campaigns
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11342
PY  - 2005
Y2  - May 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11342
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11342.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Scott Adams
E-Mail: sjadams@uwm.edu

David Neumark
Department of Economics
University of California at Irvine
3151 Social Science Plaza
Irvine, CA  92697
Tel: 949-824-8496
Fax: 949/824-2182
E-Mail: dneumark@uci.edu
AB  - Living wage campaigns have succeeded in about 100 jurisdictions in the United States but have also been unsuccessful in numerous cities. These unsuccessful campaigns provide a better control group or counterfactual for estimating the effects of living wage laws than the broader set of all cities without a law, and also permit the separate estimation of the effects of living wage laws and living wage campaigns. We find that living wage laws raise wages of low-wage workers but reduce employment among the least-skilled, especially when the laws cover business assistance recipients or are accompanied by similar laws in nearby cities.
ER  -