The Effects of Minimum Wage Increases on Retail Employment and Hours: New Evidence from Monthly CPS Data

Proponents of state and federal minimum wage increases argue that past minimum wage hikes have not adversely affected retail employment. However, the existing empirical evidence is mixed. This study uses monthly data from the 1979–2004 Current Population Survey to provide new estimates of the effect of minimum wage increases on retail employment and hours worked. The findings suggest evidence of modest adverse effects. A 10% increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 1% decline in retail trade employment and usual weekly hours worked. Larger negative employment and hours effects are observed for the least experienced workers in the retail sector. These results are robust across a number of specifications, but are sensitive to controls for state time trends.

How Living Wage Legislation Affects U.S. Poverty Rates

I investigate how living wage legislation affects poverty. I find evidence that living wage ordinances modestly reduce poverty rates where such ordinances are enacted. However, there is no evidence that state minimum wage laws do so. The difference in the impacts of the two types of legislation conceivably stems from a difference in the party responsible for bearing the burden of the cost.

Gender wage differences and human capital in the early twentieth century: the case of the paper box industry in New York

Women employed in the New York paper box industry in 1913–1914 earned about 60% of what men did. This paper employs the human capital framework to analyze the wage differential due to productivity related factors versus discriminatory nepotism towards men. Years of schooling, years of experience in the paper box trade, and legislative restrictions on working hours of women account for virtually all of the observed wage differential, both for all men and women in the paper box industry, and between the skilled occupations of cutters and strippers.

Britain’s Labor Market Under the Blair Governments

Since the Labor Party returned to power in 1997, a substantial increase in employment regulation has occurred in the United Kingdom. Britain has enacted new laws on labor union recognition, introduced a national minimum wage, enhanced employment protection legislation, strengthened anti-discrimination legislation, and imposed many new obligations on employers. Employment regulation should not, however, be looked at in isolation. The potential for job loss implicit in some of the Blair administrations’ regulation has been offset by other factors which have broadly supported labor market flexibility. This does not mean that further regulation can be imposed with impunity. Although the UK labor market continues to perform better than those of the large continental European economies, its competitiveness may be slipping. When Mr. Blair retires, the prospects may deteriorate.

The Non-Existence of the Labor Demand/Supply Diagram,and other Theorems of Institutional Economics

The most famous and influential diagram in modern (neoclassical) labor economics is the model of wage determination by supply and demand. Using concepts and ideas from institutional economics, I argue that the theory of a perfectly competitive labor market is logically contradictory and, hence, the demand/supply diagram cannot exist on the plane of pure theory. Four other fundamental theorems concerning labor markets are also derived, as are implications about the theoretical foundation of the field of industrial relations and the economic evaluation of labor and employment policy.

Temporal Distributions of Crime and Disorder in Casino and Non-Casino Zones

Research on the relationship between casinos and crime has yielded mixed conclusions. Some authors argue that casinos are crime attractors and provide fertile grounds for disorder in the surrounding communities. Others claim that the impact of casinos on the crime problem has been over-stated and that casinos in themselves are not crime generators. Relying on calls for service and incidents known to the police, this research reveals the specific spatial and temporal characteristics of all criminal and disorderly behaviors around casino venues.

The Influence of Social Supports on Employment for Hispanic, Black, and White Unmarried Mothers

This study considers the relationship between social supports and employment and how this relationship may differ for Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and non-Hispanic White unmarried mothers with young children. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this article examines how various perceived and received social supports influence later employment outcomes. Multinomial regression analyses indicate that family, individual, and family background supports promoted employment while community supports were associated with lower employment levels. Race-specific analyses indicate that supports were related to employment to a much greater extent for Hispanics and non-Hispanic Blacks than for non-Hispanic Whites. Results suggest that unmarried mothers’ unique needs and supports must be taken into account to accommodate employment.

Union Worker Wage Effect in the Public Sector

This study examines union wage premiums in the public sector for the 1998–2004 period. Unlike previous studies, our approach estimates union wage premiums considering differences in the rewards to education, experience, and other personal characteristics for union and non-union workers. The approach provides a larger estimated wage gap than the traditional approach, and allows for simulations of union–nonunion wage gaps for different types of workers. Moreover, we use an Oaxaca decomposition to explain the larger union–nonunion wage gap in the private sector in comparison to that in the public sector. We find that between 50% and 60% of the difference in union wage premiums between the private and public sectors is due to differences in the way unionized workers are rewarded in the private and public sectors, while the remaining portion is due to differences in personal characteristics of private and public sector workers.

Does Public or Not-for-Profit Status Affect the Earnings of Hospital Workers?

This paper examines the earnings differentials among hospital workers in the public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit sectors. Utilizing data from the 1995 through 2007 Current Population Surveys, unadjusted earnings are highest in the private nonprofit sector and lowest in private for-profit firms. Once measurable characteristics are accounted for, health practitioners in for-profit and nonprofit hospitals earn similar wages while public sector workers earn small but significant wage penalties. Nonprofit hospitals tend to attract workers with higher levels of skill as measured by schooling and potential experience. This could be explained in part by worker sorting and lower cost containment incentives in nonprofit hospitals. Wage change analysis using pooled 2-year panels constructed from the CPS indicate no significant differences in earnings between the three sectors of employment. Whatever the role of the sector of employment on the overall earnings of hospital workers, there is sufficient worker mobility within the industry to largely eliminate systematic wage differences across type of hospital.

The Decomposition of Firm-size Wage Differentials

No completely satisfactory explanation for the persistent and well-documented large-firm wage premium has been found. I use a novel adaptation of the Oaxaca/Blinder wage discrimination model to examine the firm-size wage differential which allows the wage differential to be decomposed into the portions attributable to (1) differences in employee endowments, (2) how the firm values these endowments, and (3) residual differences. Small firms actually pay higher wages based on how they value their workers’ endowments, but this wage premium was overshadowed by the superior endowments of workers in large firms and a residual differential in favor of large firms.

How Wage Compression Affects Job Turnover

I use Swedish establishment-level panel data to test the hypothesis of Bertola and Rogerson (Eur Econ Rev 41:1147–1171 1997) of a positive relation between the degree of wage compression and job reallocation. Results indicate that the effect of wage compression on job turnover is positive and significant in the manufacturing sector. The wage compression effect is stronger on job destruction than on job creation, consistent with downward wage rigidity. Further results include a strong positive relationship between the fraction of temporary employees and job turnover and a negative relationship between the amount of working-time flexibility and job reallocation.

Testing Fair Wage Theory

Fairness considerations often are invoked to explain wage differences that appear unrelated to worker characteristics or job conditions, but non-experimental tests of fair wage models are rare because market data rarely permit researchers to measure individual workers’ productivity and its value. We use data from the baseball labor market to address this problem, and find no support for fair wage theory. We do find, however, that fairness premia can be illusory: Wages appear to incorporate fairness premia in regressions that control for variation in individuals’ physical output, but such premia evaporate when the value of that output is held constant.

The economics of gay and lesbian couples: Introduction to a special issue on gay and lesbian households

This article presents a simple conceptual framework integrating three couple-related outcomes analyzed in this volume: wage differentials in earnings related to couple formation, household formation (including cohabitation and registration as Registered Domestic Partnership), and intra-household allocation of income. It also discusses some of the articles’ main findings.

The Impact of Privatization on the Earnings of Restructured Workers: Evidence From the Oil Industry

We study the long-term impact of job displacement from a big state owned enterprise as a result of its privatization in a developing country. Our results suggest large reductions in earnings, which persist throughout the years. However, we also find that the displaced worker’s post-displacement earnings are in line with competitive market wages, and unrelated to sector of employment or to tenure losses, indicating that the long-term reduction in earnings as a result of displacement because of privatization can be traced to the loss of wage rents. Our results indicate that job displacement in SOEs may have very large redistributive implications for the workers involved but that this loss does not necessarily reflect the loss of specific human capital associated to these jobs.

The Social Construction of Deviant Behavior in Homeless and Runaway Youth: Implications for Practice

This study examined the social construction of deviance in a sample of homeless and/or runaway youth in metropolitan Phoenix. In depth semi-structured interviews with 14 youth were conducted, and the data were transcribed and analyzed using a qualitative research computer program. The findings from the study point to an emerging theory, which suggests that ambiguous local policies relevant to homeless youth (e.g., trespassing, loitering) resulted in their selective enforcement by local security and police. Respondents described the ways that they adapted their behaviors to the environmental stressors resulting from these policies. Implications for practice are discussed.

Ethnic Identity Development Among Adolescents in Foster Care

Because past research indicates that stronger ethnic identity is related to better outcomes in areas such as academic achievement and mental health, it is important to provide youth in foster care with opportunities to develop their ethnic identity. Using data from in-person interviews with 188 youth aged 14–17 in foster care (88.7% response rate), this paper explores two areas related to ethnic identity: (1) youth perceptions about their own ethnic identity, and (2) attitudes about ethnic identity development specific to the experience of being in foster care. Results suggest that black youth and Hispanic/Latino youth have a stronger sense of ethnic identity than white youth. Most youth are interested in learning more about their ethnic background. Understanding how youth in foster care identify ethnically and understanding their beliefs related to ethnic identity may lead to the enhancement of services provided to youth across child welfare, education, and mental health systems.

Where Risks and Protective Factors Operate Differently: Homeless Sexual Minority Youth and Suicide Attempts

Using a sample of 628 homeless youth and young adults from eight US cities, this study examines whether the relationship between having been in custody of social services and suicide attempts, and the relationship between engaging in survival sex and suicide attempts differ based on sexual orientation. Findings suggest that being in custody of social services is associated with a significant increase in likelihood of suicide attempts for heterosexual youth, it does not, however, significantly change the already increased risk of suicide attempts for sexual minority youth. Engaging in survival sex appears to be associated with increased risks of suicide attempts for both heterosexual and sexual minority youth, but the increase in likelihood is much stronger for heterosexual youth than for sexual minority youth. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

“Family-Friendly” Fringe Benefits and the Gender Wage Gap

Evidence suggests a large portion of the gender wage gap is explained by gender occupational segregation. A common hypothesis is that gender differences in preferences or abilities explain this segregation; women may prefer jobs that provide more “family-friendly” fringe benefits. Much of the research provides no direct evidence on gender differences in access to fringe benefits, nor how provision affects wages. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we find that women are more likely to receive family-friendly benefits, but not other types of fringe benefits. We find no evidence that the differences in fringe benefits explain the gender wage gap.

Educational Attainment and the Lesbian Wage Premium

This paper provides insight into the wage gap between lesbians and heterosexual women. Using data from the 2000 Decennial Census, we find a lesbian premium that equals approximately 10% for women without a bachelor’s degree, and is nearly non-existent for women with higher levels of education. These findings are consistent with proposition that the gap between lesbians’ and heterosexual women’s commitment to the labor market narrows at higher levels of education. We also find that controls for industry and occupation exert only a small effect on the gap between lesbian and heterosexual women’s wages.

A Historical Perspective on High School Students’ Paid Employment and Its Association with High School Dropout

Discussions about the role of paid employment in high school students’ lives usually involve untested assumptions about historical trends in the frequency, intensity, and selective nature of students’ employment behaviors. Using several nationally representative data sources, we find few changes in rates of employment or hours worked per week among adolescents since 1940 or among students since 1980. We observe important changes in recent decades in racial/ethnic and gender differences in employment and intensive employment. Finally, we observe that the relationship between students’ intensive employment and high school completion has been stable and persistently significant since the late 1960s.