Additional Evidence and Replication Code for Analyzing the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Enacted During the Great Recession

Clemens, Jeffrey and Wither, Michael (2017): Additional Evidence and Replication Code for Analyzing the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Enacted During the Great Recession.

Abstract

In previous work (Clemens and Wither, 2014), we reported evidence that minimum wage increases contributed to declines in low-skilled individuals' employment during the Great Recession. Because this work has generated both interest and disagreement, we use the current paper to present the code underlying our baseline estimates and to present supplemental results. Our supplemental analysis focuses on choices that arise when processing wage and earnings data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to isolate samples of ``low-skilled'' individuals. We further assess the relevance of several alternative approaches to sample selection. We show that these data processing and sample selection margins have little effect on the qualitative implications of our estimates. We present additional evidence that minimum wage increases had a negative effect on employment entry among individuals who were unemployed throughout our baseline period.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Minimum Wage; Great Recession; Program Evaluation
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J2 - Demand and Supply of Labor; J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J3 - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs

References

[1] Clemens, J. (2015): “The Minimum Wage and the Great Recession: Evidence from the Current Population Survey,” NBER Working Paper 21830.

[2] Clemens, J. (2017a): “The Minimum Wage and the Great Recession: A Response to Zipperer and Recapitulation of the Evidence,” Mimeo.

[3] Clemens, J. (2017b): “Pitfalls in the Development of Falsification Tests: An Illustration from the Recent Minimum Wage Literature,” Mimeo.

[4] Clemens, J., and M. Wither (2014): “The Minimum Wage and the Great Recession: Evidence of Effects on the Employment and Income Trajectories of Low-Skilled Workers,” NBER Working Paper 20724.

[5] Linneman, P. (1982): “The economic impacts of minimum wage laws: a new look at an old question,” Journal of Political Economy, pp. 443–469.

[6] Neumark, D. (2016): “Policy levers to increase jobs and increase income from work after the Great Recession,” IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 5(1), 6.

[7] Sabia, J. J., R. V. Burkhauser, and B. Hansen (2012): “Are the Effects of Minimum Wage Increases Always Small-New Evidence from a Case Study of New York State,” Indus. & Lab. Rel. Rev., 65, 350.

[8] Zipperer, B. (2016): “Did the minimum wage or the Great Recession reduce low-wage employment? Comments on Clemens and Wither (2016),” Discussion paper.