Word: neumark
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Ever since, however, critics and supporters have slugged it out over the minimum wage: some say it destroys jobs by making it too expensive to keep workers. University of California professor David Neumark estimates that the July 24 hike will end up costing some 300,000 jobs for young adults and teens by making their employment prohibitively expensive for enterprises already facing rapidly eroding profit margins...
Driving the movement is new evidence that may dispel early fears that the social benefit from higher wages would be wiped out by job cutbacks among businesses subject to the living-wage laws. Last month a study of 36 cities with living-wage laws--conducted by David Neumark, a Michigan State University economics professor and an early skeptic of such laws--found that the slight job losses caused by the higher wages are more than offset by the decrease in poverty among working families. "The impact on businesses and governments is very small," says Robert Pollin, an economics professor...
Economist Neumark found that from 1996 to 2000, poverty fell more sharply in living-wage cities than elsewhere. Disproportionate unemployment occurred but, he writes cautiously, "on net, living wages may provide some assistance to the urban poor." Living-wage advocates see Neumark as a conservative minimum-wage basher converted by the success of living wages--a characterization that appears to make him uncomfortable. Critics on the right fault his study for narrowly focusing on families pushed just above the official poverty standard at the expense of those who lost their jobs. Neumark emphasizes that more research is needed to determine...
What's already clear, Neumark says, is that living wages, which focus on impoverished workers, are more effective than across-the-board increases in the minimum wage. Minimum wages don't target the poor very well, he contends, because much of the benefit flows to teenagers from middle-income homes who work part time at the Gap or Wendy's. Living wages, however, target the poor quite effectively. Many businesses have found that the productivity gains, lower turnover and greater loyalty that accompany higher wages help offset the costs to employers. A study by the San Francisco department of public...
...discussion and ultimate decision. The studies that have been conducted only examine the affects of a living wage on employees of a municipality?he wage floor itself is a ?rade-off?between the benefits of a higher wage for some and increased levels of unemployment for others, Neumark says...