In early 2007, there were approximately 140 living wage ordinances in place throughout the United States. Communities around the country frequently debate new proposals of this sort. Additionally, as a result of ballot initiatives, twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia, representing...

Drawing on data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), David Neumark (2002) finds that living wage laws have brought substantial wage increases for a high proportion of workers in cities that have passed these laws. He also finds that living wage laws significantly reduce employment...

The single most important fact about the contemporary pattern of global economic integration is that it is being guided by a predominant commitment to neoliberal economic policies. Considering both the global North and South, this paper examines three basic problems resulting from neoliberal...

The term "living wage" has been used in two separate ways: 1) a wage rate that will enable workers and their families to live above a reasonable poverty threshold; and 2) a somewhat more ambitious standard, a wage rate that will meet a family's basic budgetary needs. This paper attempts to...

This encyclopedia entry examines the relationship between saving behavior in capitalist economies and their macroeconomic performance. It first considers various accounting issues in defining "saving" and argues for the significance of these accounting distinctions for understanding how saving...

This paper provides some empirical evidence on issues raised by the global anti-sweatshop movement. We first consider the relationship between wage and employment growth, finding no consistent trade-off between them. We then measure the share of labor costs in the production of garments in the...