A Measure of Fairness : The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States / Mark Brenner, Robert Pollin, Stephanie Luce, Jeannette Wicks-Lim.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pollin, Robert, author.

Brenner, Mark, author.

Luce, Stephanie, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Living wage movement--United States.

Living wage movement.

Minimum wage--United States.

Minimum wage.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 292 p. :) ill. ;

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In early 2007, there were approximately 140 living wage ordinances in place throughout the United States. Communities around the country frequently debate new proposals of this sort. Additionally, as a result of ballot initiatives, twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia, representing nearly 70 percent of the total U.S. population, maintain minimum wage standards above those set by the federal minimum wage.In A Measure of Fairness, Robert Pollin, Mark Brenner, Jeannette Wicks-Lim, and Stephanie Luce assess how well living wage and minimum wage regulations in the United States serve the workers they are intended to help. Opponents of such measures assert that when faced with mandated increases in labor costs, businesses will either lay off workers, hire fewer low-wage employees in the future, replace low-credentialed workers with those having better qualifications or, finally, even relocate to avoid facing the increased costs being imposed on them.The authors give an overview of living wage and minimum wage implementation in Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut to show how these policies play out in the paychecks of workers, in the halls of legislature, and in business ledgers. Based on a decade of research, this volume concludes that living wage laws and minimum wage increases have been effective policy interventions capable of bringing significant, if modest, benefits to the people they were intended to help.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Tables and Figures

Preface / Pollin, Robert

PART 1: What Are the Questions?

1. Introduction

2. The Economic Logic and Moral Imperative of Living Wages

3. Debating Living Wage Laws: Paul Krugman versus Robert Pollin

PART 2: Impacts on Business

Introduction

4. A 5. The Santa Fe Citywide Living Wage Measure: The Impact on Business of the 6. Spending Injections from the Arizona Minimum Wage Increase: How Businesses Benefit

PART 3: Benefits to Workers and Families

7. What Is a Living Wage? Considerations for Santa Monica, California

8. How Santa Monica Workers Would Have Benefited from a 0.75 Living Wage

9. How Workers and Their Families Will Benefit from the Arizona Minimum Wage Increase

PART 4: Retrospective Analysis

10. Living Wage Laws in Practice: Retrospective Studies on Boston, Hartford, and New Haven

PART 5: Technical Studies and Debates

11. Mandated Wage Floors and the Wage Structure: New Estimates of the Ripple Effects of Minimum Wage Laws

12. Employment Effects of Higher Minimum Wages: A State-by-State Comparative Analysis

13. Comments on Aaron Yelowitz, "Santa Fe's Living Wage Ordinance and the Labor Market"

14. Detecting the Effects of Living Wage Laws: A Comment on Neumark and Adams

Notes

References

Acknowledgments

Index

About the Authors

Notes:

"ILR/Cornell paperbacks"--P. [4] of cover.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-278) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Sep 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781501729522

1501729527

OCLC:

1080551289