The Effect of Minimum Wage Increases on Wages, Hours Worked and Job Loss

James Bishop

RBA Research Discussion Papers from Reserve Bank of Australia

Abstract: Australia has a detailed system of 'awards' that specifiy different minimum wages depending on the industry, location and skill of an employee. Using job-level data from a survey of firms, this paper examines the effect of award wage changes on wages, hours worked and the job destruction rate. I exploit the fact that between 1998 and 2008, award wages were increased by a flat dollar amount each year (say, 50 cents per hour), irrespective of existing award wage levels. This led to larger award wage rises in percentage terms for jobs whose award wages were relatively low, compared to those on higher award wages. I find that adjustments to awards are almost fully passed on to wages in award-reliant jobs. I find no evidence that these small, incremental increases in award wages have an adverse effect on hours worked or the job destruction rate.

Keywords: minimum wage; employment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-05
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/2018/pdf/rdp2018-06.pdf (application/pdf)

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:rba:rbardp:rdp2018-06

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in RBA Research Discussion Papers from Reserve Bank of Australia Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Paula Drew ().