“A minimum wage increase doesn’t kill jobs,” says Michael Reich. A new article from Berkeley News highlights a recent working paper by Reich and coauthors at IRLE on the impact of minimum wage laws on small businesses, which finds that higher wages eases employee recruitment and retention. Read the news piece here, and check out the full working paper.
Conrad Miller on Job Suburbanization & Black Employment
In a National Bureau of Economic Research video feature, Conrad Miller breaks down his paper at the intersection of racial equity, labor, and geography: “When Work Moves: Suburbanization and Black Employment.” Miller finds that highway construction resulted in job suburbanization, increasing the employment gap between black and white workers. Watch the video here.
Ellora Derenoncourt on Shortcomings of the Great Migration
A new piece from Inequality.org cites research by affiliate Ellora Derenoncourt to explain the shortcomings of the Great Migration. Resulting from the racist violence of 1919’s “Red Summer,” in addition to policies driving de-industrialization, ghettoization of African Americans, white flight, and mass incarceration, outcomes for third-generation Black children in the North today look no better than outcomes for their Southern counterparts. Read the article here.
Ellora Derenoncourt on Racial Wealth Inequality
Despite progress made since the civil rights movement, efforts toward reducing racial wealth inequality are stalling, highlights NPR Planet Money. The latest edition of the newsletter features new research from affiliate Ellora Derenoncourt and coauthors that constructs the first continuous dataset on wealth inequality between Black and white Americans, dating back to 1860. Read more here.
Ellora Derenoncourt: Raising the Minimum Wage is a Necessary Step in Achieving Equity for Black Workers
Ellora Derenoncourt was featured on NPR in a recent story on what life is like for Americans making under $15 an hour. Derenoncourt explains the history of the minimum wage in the U.S., including how one of the demands of the 1963 March on Washington was a $2 national minimum wage (over $15 today adjusted for inflation). She also draws upon her own research, which demonstrates the powerful effect that raising the minimum wage would have for Black workers. Check out the full story here.
Ellora Derenoncourt and Claire Montialoux on Wages and Racial Equity
Recent research by Ellora Derenoncourt and Claire Montialoux reveals how increases in the federal minimum wage benefited Black workers. In recent decades however, the racial wage gap has increased again. Their work was cited in a recent NY Times column by David Leonhardt. Take a look!
