Business’ may cry foul, but Alberta, despite being one of the wealthiest provinces in the country, when the oil price is high, has the lowest minimum wage in Canada. The affects on the economy will be negative, say small business owners and service related industries. Of course, every argument has two sides. Here are some examples where minimum has not crippled the economy, and why it won’t happen in Alberta.
Here are some helpful sources to suggest minimum wage won’t throw the economy into a permanent recession.
http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/inequality/the-effects-of-raising-the-minimum-wage
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/86w5m90m
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-27/finally-an-answer-to-the-old-minimum-wage-question
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf
http://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf
Lawrence F. Katz and Alan B. Krueger, “The Effect of the Minimum Wage on the Fast Food Industry,” Industrial Relations Section, Princeton University, February 1992.
David Card, “Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, October 1992.
David Card and Alan Krueger, Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).
David Card and Alan B. Krueger, “Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania: Reply,” American Economic Review, December 2000 (in this reply, Card and Krueger update earlier findings and refute critics).
Jared Bernstein and John Schmitt, Economic Policy Institute, Making Work Pay: The Impact of the 1996-97 Minimum Wage Increase, 1998.
Jerold Waltman, Allan McBride and Nicole Camhout, “Minimum Wage Increases and the Business Failure Rate,” Journal of Economic Issues, March 1998.
A Report by the National Economic Council, The Minimum Wage: Increasing the Reward for Work, March 2000.
Holly Sklar, Laryssa Mykyta and Susan Wefald, Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work For All Of Us (Boston: South End Press, 2001/2002), Ch. 4 and pp. 102-08.
Marilyn P. Watkins, Economic Opportunity Institute, “Still Working Well: Washington’s Minimum Wage and the Beginnings of Economic Recovery,” January 21, 2004.
Amy Chasanov, Economic Policy Institute, No Longer Getting By: An Increase in the Minimum Wage is Long Overdue, May 2004.
Fiscal Policy Institute, States with Minimum Wages above the Federal Level Have Had Faster Small Business and Retail Job Growth, March 2006 (update of 2004 report).
John Burton and Amy Hanauer, Center for American Progress and Policy Matters Ohio, Good for Business: Small Business Growth and State Minimum Wages, May 2006.
Paul K. Sonn, Citywide Minimum Wage Laws: A New Policy Tool for Local Governments, (originally published by Brennan Center for Justice) National Employment Law Project, May 2006, includes a good summary of impact research.
Liana Fox, Economic Policy Institute, Minimum Wage Trends: Understanding past and contemporary research, November 8, 2006.
Paul Wolfson, Economic Policy Institute, State Minimum Wages: A Policy That Works, November 27, 2006.
Arindrajit Dube, Suresh Naidu and Michael Reich, “The Economic Effects of a Citywide Minimum Wage,” Industrial & Labor Relations Review, July 2007.
Jerold L. Waltman, Minimum Wage Policy in Great Britain and the United States (New York: Algora, 2008), pp. 17-19, 132-136, 151-162, 178-180.
Sylvia Allegretto, Arindrajit Dube and Michael Reich, Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment?, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Univ. of CA, Berkeley, June 28, 2008.
Michael F. Thompson, Indiana Business Research Center, “Minimum Wage Impacts on Employment: A Look at Indiana, Illinois and Surrounding Midwestern States,” Indiana Business Review, Fall 2008.
Hristos Doucouliagos and T. D. Stanley, “Publication Selection Bias in Minimum-Wage Research? A Meta-Regression Analysis,” British Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 47, no. 2, 2009.
Sylvia Allegretto, Arindrajit Dube and Michael Reich, Spacial Heterogeneity and Minimum Wages: Employment Estimates for Teens Using Cross-State Commuting Zones, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Univ. of CA, Berkeley, June 25, 2009.
Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester and Michael Reich, Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Univ. of CA, Berkeley, August 2008. Published by The Review of Economics and Statistics, November 2010.
John Schmitt and David Rosnick, The Wage and Employment Impact of Minimum?Wage Laws in Three Cities, Center for Economic and Policy Research, March 2011.
Sylvia Allegretto, Arindrajit Dube and Michael Reich, Do Minimum Wages Really Reduce Teen Employment? Accounting for Heterogeneity and Selectivity in State Panel Data, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Univ. of CA, Berkeley, June 21, 2010. Published by Industrial Relations, April 2011.
Anne Thompson, What Is Causing Record-High Teen Unemployment? Range of Economic Factors Drives High Teen Unemployment, But Minimum Wage Not One of Them, National Employment Law Project, October 2011.
Sylvia Allegretto, Arindrajit Dube, Michael Reich and Ben Zipperer, Credible Research Designs for Minimum Wage Studies, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, IRLE Working Paper No. 148-13, 2013
John Schmidt, Why Does the Minimum Wage Have No Discernible Effect on Employment?, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Febuary 2013.
Michael Reich, Ken Jacobs and Miranda Dietz (eds.), When Mandates Work: Raising Labor Standards at the Local Level (Berkeley CA: University of California Press) 2014.
Michael Reich, The Troubling Fine Print In The Claim That Raising The Minimum Wage Will Cost Jobs, (Response to CBO report), Think Progress, February 19, 2014.
Michael Reich, No, a Minimum-Wage Boost Won’t Kill Jobs, (Response to CBO report), Politico, February 21. 2014.
Michael Reich, Ken Jacobs and Annette Bernhardt, Local Minimum Wage Laws: Impacts on Workers, Families and Businesses, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, IRLE Working Paper No. 104-14, March 2014.
Dale Belman and Paul J. Wolfson, The New Minimum Wage Research, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Employment Research 21:2, 2014.
Dale Belman and Paul J. Wolfson, What Does the Minimum Wage Do?, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, (book) 2014.
Center for Economic and Policy Research, States That Raised Their MinimumWage in 2014 Had Stronger Job Growth Than Those That Didn’t, April 2014.
Center for Economic and Policy Research, Update on the Thirteen States that Raised their Minimum Wage, August 2014.
Daniel Kuehn, The Importance of Study Design in the Minimum Wage Debate, Economic Policy Institute, September 2014.
National Employment Law Project, City Minimum Wage Laws: Recent Trends and Economic Evidence on Local Minimum Wages, December 2014.
David Cooper, Lawrence Mishel and John Schmit, We Can Afford a $12.00 Federal Minimum Wage in 2020, Economic Policy Institute, April 2015.