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  5. City Limits: What Do Local-Area Minimum Wages Do?

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

City Limits: What Do Local-Area Minimum Wages Do?

  • Arindrajit Dube
  • Attila Lindner
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 35, no. 1, Winter 2021
(pp. 27–50)
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Abstract

Cities are increasingly setting their own minimum wages, and this trend has accelerated sharply in recent years. While in 2010 there were only three cities with their own minimum wages exceeding the state or federal standard, by 2020 there were 42. This new phenomenon raises the question: is it desirable to have city-level variation in minimum wage polices? We discuss the main trade-offs emerging from local variation in minimum wage polices and evaluate their empirical relevance. First, we document what type of cities raise minimum wages, and we discuss how these characteristics can potentially impact the effectiveness of city-level minimum wage policies. Second, we summarize the evolving evidence on city-level minimum wage changes and provide some new evidence of our own. Early evidence suggests that the impact of the policy on wages and employment to date has been broadly similar to the evidence on state- and federal-level minimum wage changes. Overall, city-level minimum wages seem to be able to tailor the policy to the local economic environment without imposing substantial distortions in allocation of labor and businesses across locations.

Citation

Dube, Arindrajit, and Attila Lindner. 2021. "City Limits: What Do Local-Area Minimum Wages Do?" Journal of Economic Perspectives, 35 (1): 27–50. DOI: 10.1257/jep.35.1.27

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D31 Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions
  • J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
  • J23 Labor Demand
  • J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
  • J38 Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: Public Policy
  • J63 Labor Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
  • R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
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