The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment

By David Henderson.

"In a comment on my blog post about the proposed $15 federal minimum wage, frequent (and careful) commenter KevinDC quotes my statement:

Here’s what they found. The vast majority of studies, 79.3 percent, found that a higher minimum wage led to less employment.

He then comments:

I like the precise wording here by using the term “less employment.” One thing I’ve tried explaining to people is that is possible for increases in the minimum wage to decrease employment without increasing unemployment, because economists are bad at naming things in a way that make intuitive sense to people outside the field. (“Public goods? Obviously that means goods provided by the public sector, right?” “Market failure? That’s whenever I personally don’t like a market outcome, isn’t it?”) So, even in the case where  particular study doesn’t find increased unemployment after a minimum wage hike, that doesn’t actually mean that the increase in the minimum wage didn’t decrease employment.

Well said, Kevin.

I want to add that the CBO study I cited makes this distinction also. Here’s a key paragraph:

Taking those factors into account, CBO projects that, on net, the Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would reduce employment by increasing amounts over the 2021–2025 period. In 2025, when the minimum wage reached $15 per hour, employment would be reduced by 1.4 million workers (or 0.9 percent), according to CBO’s average estimate. In 2021, most workers who would not have a job because of the higher minimum wage would still be looking for work and hence be categorized as unemployed; by 2025, however, half of the 1.4 million people who would be jobless because of the bill would have dropped out of the labor force, CBO estimates. Young, less educated people would account for a disproportionate share of those reductions in employment."