National Employment Law Project, April 2011

Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment?, an important new study by economists Sylvia Allegretto, Arindrajit Dube and Michael Reich, finds that increases in the minimum wage over the past two decades did not lead to declines in teen employment. Their analysis includes an in depth examination of minimum wage increases during times of high unemployment—including the Great Recession of 2007-2009—and finds that even in these difficult economic periods, increases in the minimum wage did not cause job loss or slow rehiring. Together with a companion study, Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders, published in November 2010, the study adds a comprehensive new round of evidence to a large and growing body of research spanning more than fifteen years that has found that increases in the minimum wage raise workers’ earnings without reducing employment.

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