The effects of minimum wages on the distribution of family incomes: a nonparametric analysis

David Neumark (), Mark Schweitzer and William Wascher

No 412, Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Abstract: The primary goal of a national minimum wage floor is to raise the incomes of poor families with members in the work force. We present evidence on the effects of minimum wages on family incomes from March CPS surveys. Using non-parametric estimates of the distributions of family income relative to needs in states and years with and without minimum wage increases, we examine the effects of minimum wages on this distribution, and on the distribution of the changes in income that families experience. Although minimum wages do increase the incomes of some poor families, the evidence indicates that their net effect is, if anything, to increase the proportions of families with incomes below or near the poverty line. Thus, it would appear that reductions in the proportions of families that are poor or near-poor should not be counted among the potential benefits of minimum wages.

Keywords: Minimum wage; Poverty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-ltv
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations View citations in EconPapers (1) Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.clevelandfed.org/Research/Workpaper/2004/WP04-12.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Effects of Minimum Wages on the Distribution of Family Incomes: A Nonparametric Analysis (2005)
Working Paper: The Effects of Minimum Wages on the Distribution of Family Incomes: A Non-Parametric Analysis (1998)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedcwp:0412

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Diane Rosenberger ().