Long-Term Costs of a Minimum Wage

Posted by Michael F. Cannon

Greg Mankiw blogs an NBER study by David Neumark and Olena Nizalovaof on the minimum wage, including this finding by Neumark and Nizalovaof:

The evidence indicates that even as individuals reach their late 20’s, they work less and earn less the longer they were exposed to a higher minimum wage, especially as a teenager. The adverse longer-run effects of facing high minimum wages as a teenager are stronger for blacks. From a policy perspective, these longer-run effects of minimum wages are likely more significant than the contemporaneous effects of minimum wages on youths that are the focus of most research and policy debate.

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