Does the minimum wage help the poor?

Daniel Fairchild

Forum for Social Economics, 2004, vol. 34, issue 1-2, 31-42

Abstract: Conventional economics frequently employs abstract analysis, including questionable assumptions regarding human behavior, together with highly quantitative methodology. While these techniques do not provide a full picture of economic life, conventional economic analysis has provided important insights and predictive power, at least during certain historical periods. The effects of minimum wage laws have been analyzed extensively by conventional economists over the past quarter century. That analysis, much of it empirical, has produced important insights into the effects of the minimum wage on the poor. In this article, I survey that vast body of research and address whether the poor are better off due to the minimum wage. I conclude the minimum wage does not unambiguously help the poor, and may do more harm than good to this segment of the nation's population.

Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF02747502 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:fosoec:v:34:y:2004:i:1-2:p:31-42

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RFSE20

DOI: 10.1007/BF02747502

Access Statistics for this article

Forum for Social Economics is currently edited by William Milberg, Dr Wolfram Elsner, Philip O'Hara, Cecilia Winters and Paolo Ramazzotti

More articles in Forum for Social Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().