15 Years of Research on U.S. Employment and the Minimum Wage

Abstract

Statistical analysis of the effect of the minimum wage on employment, has been very active for the last quarter century. More than 60 analyses using U.S. data have appeared since the exchange between David Neumark and William Wascher, and David Card and Alan Krueger in the AER (December 2000). This study presents a meta-analysis of the 37 that report results in a way that makes them easily comparable and suitable for this technique. The most important result is that the consensus range of -0.3 to -0.1 has shifted considerably toward the origin: -0.12 to -0.05. We find a moderate degree of publication bias in this literature, but no support for the proposition that the minimum wage has had an important effect on U.S. employment.

Keywords: Minimum Wage, Employment, Meta-Analysis

JEL Classification: J23, J38