minimum wage

is a dollar amount which, even if doubled, would indeed affect teenage unemployment (as argued by its desenters), but it would amount to only a 1% decrease.

and T. D. Stanley (2009) conducted a meta-study of 64 minimum-wage studies published between 1972 and 2007 measuring the impact of minimum wages on teenage employment in the United States. When they graphed every employment estimate contained in these studies (over 1,000 in total), weighting each estimate by its statistical precision, they found that the most precise estimates were heavily clustered at or near zero employment effects (see Figure 1). Doucouliagos and Stanley's results held through an extensive set of checks, including limiting the analysis to what study authors' viewed as their best (usually of many) estimates of the employment impacts, controlling for possible correlation of estimates within each study, and controlling for possible correlation of estimates by each author involved in multiple studies. Doucouliagos and Stanley concluded that their results '...corroborate [Card and Krueger's] overall finding of an insignificant employment effect (both practically and statistically) from minimum-wage raises.'12 FOOTNOTE: Doucouliagos and Stanley (2009), p. 422. Doucouliagos and Stanley put the size of the effects they find into perspective: A 10 per cent increase in the minimum wage reduces employment by about 0.10 per cent... But even if this adverse employment effect were true, it would be of no practical relevance. An elasticity of -0.01 has no meaningful policy implications. If correct the minimum wage could be doubled and cause only a 1 per cent decrease in teenage employment. (2009, pp. 415-16)

Hristos Doucouliagos

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