Session: Raising the Wage: Employment, Income, and Social Justice Implications of Minimum Wage Increases (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

Background and Purpose: Federal and state minimum wage laws have received a great deal of attention in the United States in recent years, with several major cities voting to raise the wage by 50-100% above the current federal level. More recently, two states—New York and California—have moved to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr. statewide, with more states beginning to consider similar moves through either legislative or ballot initiative processes. The issue is of particular interest to social workers, who often work directly with clients affected by minimum wage laws. Although the potential increase in household income is widely hailed as an important effort to combat income and wealth inequality in the U.S., some argue that raising the wage comes with potentially harmful unintended consequences, such as job loss, higher cost of living, and increased household exposure to the “cliff effects” of losing access to public supports such as Medicaid coverage and child care subsidies. 

Methods: This symposium will review current evidence about the benefits and potential costs of increasing the minimum wage in cities and states across the U.S., with particular focus on findings from cities in California and Washington, where the minimum wage has been increased to $12-15/hr., and from Colorado, where a ballot initiative has prompted research on how women and families may be effected if the state minimum wage is increased to $12/hr. The methods used include a scoping review is extant literature, a multi-method study of the effects of the minimum wage increase on employment and prices in Seattle, and a contiguous cities analysis of childcare prices in and around cities that have raised minimum wage rates to $12/hour or more.  

Results: The first presentation will provide a review of existing research, which is largely prospective, to summarize the state of knowledge about how significant increases in the minimum wage impacts the economy, businesses, and households. The second paper will present initial findings from the Seattle Minimum Wage Study, a multi-method examination of the effects of the Seattle wage mandates which started going into effect in 2015; findings will cover the first two increases which raised the hourly wage floor to $11 and then $13 for large employers. The final paper will provide findings from a prospective study of how raising the minimum wage to $12/hr. in Colorado would affect low-income women and their households, with special focus on how the costs of childcare would be impacted and how many households might experience cliff effects related to childcare subsidies and Medicaid coverage.

Conclusion: Discussion will focus on social work’s role in advocating for increases in the minimum wage while also seeking protections for those who may be most vulnerable to unintended negative consequences of these policy changes.