Endnotes
[1] Bobby Scott, “Text – H.R.582 – 116th Congress (2019-2020): Raise the Wage Act,” Pub. L. No. H.R.582 (2019), https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/582/text.
[2] David Cooper, “Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $15 by 2025 Would Lift Wages for over 33 Million Workers” (Economic Policy Institute, July 17, 2019), https://www.epi.org/publication/minimum-wage-15- by-2025/.
[3] Michael Reich and Rachel West, “The Effects of Minimum Wages on Food Stamp Enrollment and Expenditures,” Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 54, no. 4 (2015): 668–94, https://doi. org/10.1111/irel.12110; Rachel West and Michael Reich, “A Win-Win for Working Families and State Budgets” (Center for American Progress; UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, October 1, 2014), https://irle.berkeley.edu/a-win-win-for-working-families-and-state-budgets/.
[4] Ken Jacobs, Ian Eve Perry, and Jenifer MacGillvary, “The High Public Cost of Low Wages” (UC Berkeley Labor Center, April 13, 2015), https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-high-public-cost-of-low-wages/.
[5] While this report is an update of our 2015 report The High Public Cost of Low Wages, there are significant methodological differences. In the 2015 report we analyzed utilization of public safety net programs among all working families, while in this report we are limiting it to low-wage working families defined as those with at least one member earning the equivalent of $15 in 2025. Also, in the earlier report we defined “working families” as those with a family member working at least 27 weeks per year for at least 10 hours per week, while in the current analysis we include those working at least 45 weeks per year for at least 10 hours per week. Finally, 2015 we used data that reported number of hours worked in the week prior to the survey response and excluded workers with variable hours, while here we use data reporting the number of hours per week usually worked during the past year (because it best represents the worker’s experience over the whole year).
[6] Jeanette Wicks-Lim, “Mandated Wage Floors and the Wage Structure: New Estimates of the Ripple Effects of Minimum Wage Laws,” Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst, PERI Working Paper Series, 116 (2006), http://scholarworks.umass.edu/peri_workingpapers/94/.
[7] These cities with $15 minimum wages are Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Denver, Portland and Rockland Maine, and Flagstaff Arizona. In Washington, Minnesota, and Colorado, workers in $15 cities represent around 20 percent of the states’ workers. In Maine, they represent around 13 percent, and in Flagstaff they are around 1 percent of the state’s workers (2018 U.S. Census).
[8] Sylvia Allegretto et al., “Fast Food, Poverty Wages: The Public Cost of Low-Wage Jobs in the Fast-Food Industry” (UC Berkeley Labor Center), accessed December 8, 2020, https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/fast-food- poverty-wages-the-public-cost-of-low-wage-jobs-in-the-fast-food-industry/.
Suggested Citation
Jacobs, Ken, Ian Eve Perry, and Jenifer MacGillvary. The Public Cost of a Low Federal Minimum Wage. UC Berkeley Labor Center, January 2021. http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-public-cost-of-a-low-federal-minimum-wage/.