Minimum wage - Wikipedia

A 2019 study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found that minimum wage increases did not affect the overall number of low-wage jobs in the five years following the wage increase. However, it did find disemployment in 'tradable' sectors, defined as those sectors most reliant on entry-level or low-skilled labor.[78]

A 2018 study published by the University of California agrees with the study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics; it finds that minimum wages actually lead to fewer jobs for low-skilled workers. The article discusses a trade-off for low- to high-skilled workers: when the minimum wage is increased, GDP is more heavily redistributed toward high-academia jobs.[79]

In another study, which shared authors with the above, published in the American Economic Review, found that a large and persistent increase in the minimum wage in Hungary produced some disemployment, with the large majority of additional cost being passed on to consumers. The authors also found that firms began substituting capital for labor over time.[80]

Card and Krueger expanded on this initial article in their 1995 book Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage.[82] They argued that the negative employment effects of minimum wage laws are minimal if not non-existent. For example, they look at the 1992 increase in New Jersey's minimum wage, the 1988 rise in California's minimum wage, and the 1990–91 increases in the federal minimum wage. In addition to their own findings, they reanalyzed earlier studies using updated data, generally finding that the earlier negative employment effects did not hold up in the larger datasets.[83] This had major implications on policy, challenging long-held economic views that increasing minimum wage led to deadweight loss.

A 2011 paper reconciled differences between datasets, showing positive employment effects for small restaurants but negative effects for large fast-food chains.[87] A 2014 analysis found that minimum wage reduces employment among teenagers.[88]

A 2017 study in Seattle found that raising the minimum wage to $13 per hour reduced the incomes of low-wage workers because they worked fewer hours as businesses adjusted to higher labor costs.[94] A 2019 study in Arizona suggested that smaller minimum wage increases might lead to slight economic growth without significantly distorting labor markets.[95]