The instability of labor earnings in the United States contributes to earnings inequality and may diminish household welfare. Despite the importance of earnings instability little is known about its correlates or causes. This paper seeks to better understand earnings instability by studying...

Michael Strain and Stan Veuger find that the economic effects of globalization do indeed change the attitudes of whites toward immigrants, minorities, religion, and guns. More specifically, they find evidence of significant hardening of existing attitudes – that is, the impact of these import...

This paper presents results from the third year of a multiyear, pre-committed research design for analyzing recent minimum wage changes.

We study heterogeneity in minimum wage policy design and in the employment effects of minimum wage increases. Specifically, we study whether indexing minimum wages to inflation and differences in county-level wages and mobility rates lead to heterogenous employment effects following minimum wage...

Using a new survey of truck drivers, we find that those who are most concerned about automation are, counterintuitively, also most likely to say they intend to re-invest in driving. This arms race for remaining positions is socially inefficient. We find that the effect disappears among drivers...

Clemens and Strain present early evidence on the employment effects of state minimum wage increases enacted between January 2013 and January 2015 and offer an interpretative framework to understand why it is of interest to study recent changes in isolation.

Why do individuals join interest groups?

While the employment effects of minimum wage increases have been heavily studied, the impact of minimum wage increases on non-labor market outcomes has received less attention. This study is the first to investigate whether minimum wage increases in the U.S. affect an important non-market...

This paper presents a data set that tracks effective minimum wage rates across the US states, including the District of Columbia, from January 1, 2011, to January 1, 2018.

Empirical research on minimum wages has historically focused on employment effects, with the implicit assumption that workers who remain employed under a minimum wage regime are better off. This paper develops a simple model and a stylized example to highlight the importance of an...