Cities that have passed living wage ordinances often do so because of the strong political appeal of local living wage campaigns as a response to the declining value of the minimum wage, the outsourcing of municipal services, and rising income inequality. These campaigns generally consist of...

Policy could be studied on the basis of three different models: ideological, social science, and policy sciences. Policy in accordance with ideology may not necessarily rely on solid rigorous research to back it up. Policy made solely in accordance with a rigorous social science model might be...

An analysis based on data from the Current Population Survey suggests that cities with certain demographics, particularly higher concentrations of immigrants from south of the American border, lower levels of educational attainment, more people in low wage industries, and higher rates of income...

Much has been written on realigning elections and whether or not the general model has any contemporary relevance. Discussions of the last great realignment -- the New deal realignment of the 1930s -- often emphasize the broad coalition of interests which brought it about. Although organized...

Much of the debate over the minimum wage in recent years has essentially involved one between those arguing the adverse effect of raising the minimum wage — particularly among teenagers — and those who maintain that increases in the minimum wage would not only alleviate the poverty of some,...

According to Resident Scholar Oren M. Levin-Waldman, the arguments both in favor of raising the minimum wage (to restore its real spending power to levels of previous years, to increase the incentive to work, and, as a matter of fairness, to allow those who work to earn incomes above the poverty...

The Personal Responsibility Act, recently enacted in to law, effectively transforms the American welfare system from one of entitlement to a decentralized hodgepodge of programs intended to move people off of welfare. No longer is federal funding guaranteed, but it is subject to the annual...

Most accounts of why cities pass living wage ordinances stress the importance of grassroots coalitions that have successfully mobilized bias out of concerns for justice and fairness. On the basis of data from the Integrated Public Micro-Use Data Series (IPUMS) for the years 1950-1990, this paper...

Survey responses make it clear the minimum wage can be raised. The question now is how high can it be raised before serious employment consequences occur.