Living Wages

Protection for or Protection from Low-Wage Workers

Bibliographic Data

ID3386362
AuthorsDavid Neumark (0000-0002-7681-1884, corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume58
Issue1
Pages27-51
Publication date2004-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIndustrial and Labor Relations Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-7939 • E-ISSN: 2162-271X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/001979390405800102
OpenAlexW3123464175
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited15

Living wage laws are touted as anti-poverty measures. Yet they apply to only a small fraction of workers, most commonly covering only employers with city contracts. The apparent contradiction between broad anti-poverty goals and narrow coverage suggests that goals other than poverty reduction may partly underlie living wage campaigns. This paper considers the hypothesis that living wage laws act to maintain or increase rents among unionized municipal workers. By raising the wages that city contractors would have to pay, living wage laws may reduce the incentives for cities to contract out work that would otherwise be done by unionized municipal employees, hence increasing the bargaining power of municipal unions and leading to higher wages for their members. The evidence presented here, from an analysis of CPS data for 1996-2000, indicates that the wages of unionized municipal workers are indeed increased as a result of living wage laws covering contractors

Bargaining power · Business · Cost of living · Economic growth · Economic rent · Economics · Efficiency wage · Incentive · Labour economics · Living wage · Market economy · Minimum wage · Poverty · Standard of living · Wage · Work (physics) · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Labor Movements and Unions · Merger and Competition Analysis

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