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Title: The Economic impact of a High National Minimum Wage: Evidence from the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2018

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Abstract: This paper provides new evidence regarding the economic effects of a high national minimum wage in the United States. We examine the short and longer-term economic effects of the 1966 Amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which increased the U.S. minimum wage to its highest level of the 20 th Century and extended coverage to an additional 9.1 million of the lowest paid workers. Our research design is a dynamic extension of Card's (1992) methodology that exploits state-level differences in the "bite" of a national minimum wage due to differences in the standard-of-living and industry composition. The results show that the 1966 FLSA increased wages dramatically and reduced aggregate employment modestly, implying a demand elasticity with respect to wages of-0.16. The disemployment effects, however, were significantly larger among African-American men, roughly half of whom would have earned below the new minimum wage in 1966.

Url: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~baileymj/Bailey_DiNardo_Stuart.pdf

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Authors: Bailey, Martha J; DiNardo, John; Stuart, Bryan A

Publisher: University of Michigan

Data Collections: IPUMS USA, IPUMS CPS

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Other

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