Immigrants at the Margin: Labor Market Effects of the Minimum Wage

Mark Borgschulte, Heepyung Cho and Darren Lubotsky

No 35038, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We examine the differential effects of minimum wages on immigrant and native workers in the United States. We find that minimum wage increases lead to reduced hours of work among immigrants with no effect on their employment. The effects are concentrated among recently-arrived, likely-undocumented workers in high turnover industries. Native workers show no such response, even when examining native subgroups with similar characteristics to the most affected immigrants. We conclude that affected immigrant labor markets feature low-surplus, low-investment employment relationships with flexible hours, but they are embedded in labor markets where replacement is unusually costly.

JEL-codes: J08 J15 J38 J42 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04
Note: LS PE
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