NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Evidence on Employment Effects of Minimum Wages and Subminimum Wage Provisions From Panel Data on State Minimum Wage Laws

David Neumark, William Wascher

NBER Working Paper No. 3859*
Issued in October 1991
NBER Program(s):   LS

We construct a panel data set on state-level minimum wage laws and economic conditions to reevaluate existing evidence on minimum wage effects on employment, most of which comes from time-series data. Our estimates of the elasticities of teen and young-adult employment-to-population ratios fall primarily in the range -0.1 to -0.2, similar to the consensus range of estimates from time-series studies. We also find evidence that youth subminimum wage provisions enacted by state legislatures have moderated the disemployment effects of minimum wages.

*Published: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, p. 55-81

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