Economics & Policy

Does Raising the Minimum Wage Kill Jobs?

The claim is that raising the minimum wage destroys jobs; the opposite is that it costs none. This page examines what studies of US increases found for jobs and hours, and for poverty, prices, small businesses and automation.

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✓ Live Last reviewed: Nov 2026 Published March 2026 Methodology →

What this covers

This page covers increases in US minimum wages: federal, state, city and, in California, one industry’s. Many studies of jobs can be put as an own-wage elasticity. It is the percentage change in the affected group’s employment for each 1 percent rise in its average wage that the minimum wage causes.

The short answer

Mostly no, at the increases studied so far. Across 72 published studies, the median estimate is that job losses offset about 13 percent of the potential pay gains for the workers affected. Studies published since 2010 sit closer to zero. The dispute is over large increases. In Seattle, the $13 step cut hours in low-wage jobs by 6 to 7 percent. For California’s $20 fast-food minimum, estimates range from no fall in jobs to a loss of 18,000.

What theory predicts, and what the minimum wage is worth now

What theory predicts

Economic theory gives two predictions. In a competitive labor market, a higher minimum wage leads employers to cut jobs. In their 1994 study of fast-food restaurants, David Card and Alan Krueger call this prediction of conventional theory “unambiguous” and credit it to George Stigler (1946). If employers have some power to set wages, a higher minimum can instead raise employment at the firms it affects, a case Card and Krueger also set out. Alan Manning argues in his 2003 book Monopsony in Motion that employers do have such power.

Firms can also respond in other ways, which Jeffrey Clemens (2021) lists: prices, non-cash pay, the effort asked of workers, the mix of skilled and unskilled workers, and machines.

Its value over time

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009, its longest spell without an increase since it began in 1938. The $1.60 minimum set in February 1968 was worth about $15.40 in August 2026 prices, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) consumer price index for urban consumers (CPI-U). In 2026 the federal minimum is worth less than at any time since January 1950, when it rose from $0.40 to $0.75, about $10.40 in August 2026 prices.

Few workers are now paid the federal minimum: in 2024, BLS counted 843,000 hourly paid workers at or below $7.25, 1.0% of those paid by the hour. The Labor Department’s table of state rates, updated July 1, 2026, shows 30 states and the District of Columbia above $7.25.

The federal minimum wage as paid and in August 2026 prices, selected years

How to read it: each year has two bars. “As paid” is the federal minimum wage after that year’s increase. “In August 2026 prices” is the same wage deflated by that year’s average CPI-U (for 2026, the August 2026 index). The years are uneven: most are years the minimum rose, plus 2016 and 2026. Sources: Labor Department rate history; BLS CPI-U.

Federal minimum wage per hour in selected years, as paid and in August 2026 prices (CPI-U annual averages; 2026 uses the August 2026 index)
Year	As paid	In August 2026 prices
1968	$1.60	$15.40
1974	$2.00	$13.59
1978	$2.65	$13.61
1981	$3.35	$12.35
1990	$3.80	$9.74
1997	$5.15	$10.75
2007	$5.85	$9.45
2009	$7.25	$11.32
2016	$7.25	$10.12
2026	$7.25	$7.25

What the studies of jobs found

Comparisons across places

In 1994 David Card and Alan Krueger reported a survey of 410 fast-food restaurants in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania. They surveyed before and after New Jersey raised its minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.05 an hour on April 1, 1992. Pennsylvania’s minimum stayed at $4.25, so its restaurants served as the comparison. Card and Krueger found “no indication that the rise in the minimum wage reduced employment”, and their estimates pointed to a relative rise in New Jersey.

But David Neumark and William Wascher re-ran the comparison with payroll records from 230 restaurants (1995 working paper). They found a 4.6 percent fall in New Jersey’s employment relative to Pennsylvania’s. Card and Krueger replied with Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll data and found “similar or slightly faster employment growth in New Jersey”. They traced the difference between the samples to a small set of restaurants owned by one franchisee (1998 working paper).

Arindrajit Dube, William Lester and Michael Reich (2010) compared every pair of neighboring counties on opposite sides of a state border from 1990 to 2006, mainly in restaurants. Restaurant earnings rose, and the employment effects were “indistinguishable from 0”. At the 90% level, their estimates rule out an employment elasticity with respect to the minimum wage more negative than −0.147. This elasticity is the percentage change in employment for each 1 percent rise in the minimum wage, not in the affected group’s average wage.

But in 2024, Priyaranjan Jha, David Neumark and Antonio Rodriguez-Lopez repeated the design within commuting zones that cross state borders and found the border-county result “overturned”. A commuting zone is a group of counties linked by commuting, used as a local labor market.

Doruk Cengiz, Arindrajit Dube, Attila Lindner and Ben Zipperer (2019) studied 138 prominent state minimum wage increases between 1979 and 2016 by counting jobs at each wage. Jobs paying below the new minimum disappeared, but jobs paying at or slightly above it largely made up for them. So “the overall number of low-wage jobs remained essentially unchanged over five years following the increase.” They found no evidence of job loss at higher minimum wages either, though some evidence of fewer jobs in tradable sectors.

Seattle’s increase to $13

Seattle raised its minimum wage to as much as $11 in 2015 and $13 in 2016. Ekaterina Jardim and colleagues at the University of Washington studied the increases with Washington State payroll records. Their working paper (June 2017, revised May 2018) found that the $13 step cut hours worked in low-wage jobs by 6 to 7 percent. Hourly wages in those jobs rose 3 percent. So pay fell by an average of $74 a month per job in 2016.

The published version (2022) puts own-wage elasticities at −0.2 to −2.0, mostly in hours in the short run and largest among inexperienced workers. It says the aggregate analysis “likely overstates employment effects”, because some jobs moved above the study’s wage threshold rather than disappearing. Following individual workers, it found no change in the chance of staying employed, but fewer hours. Job turnover and hiring into low-wage jobs fell.

The working paper found no effect on restaurant employment at all wage levels. A Berkeley team led by Michael Reich found that food-service pay in Seattle rose, with “no evidence of job loss” in the city’s restaurants.

California’s $20 fast-food minimum

From April 1, 2024, California set a $20 minimum for fast-food chains with at least 60 locations nationwide. Denis Sosinskiy and Michael Reich (May 2025) used payroll data, Glassdoor pay reports and menu prices from over 2,000 restaurants. Covered workers’ average weekly wages rose 12% “without reducing employment”. Prices rose 2.1% two quarters later, 8 cents on a $4 item.

Other studies differ. Jeffrey Clemens, Olivia Edwards and Jonathan Meer (2025) found that fast-food employment in California fell relative to the rest of the country from September 2023 to September 2024. Adjusted for earlier trends, the fall is 3.2%, a loss of 18,000 jobs at their median estimate.

Arindrajit Dube (2026), with data through the third quarter of 2025, estimates that wages rose about 7%. He puts the own-wage elasticity at −0.19 in a conventional comparison and −0.04 when the comparison states are reweighted to match California’s earlier trend. He also finds a sharp fall in the separation rate, the share of workers leaving their jobs.

Why the studies disagree

The papers name four reasons.

The comparison: Dube, Lester and Reich argue that national studies that do not account for local economic conditions produce “spurious negative effects”. Jha, Neumark and Rodriguez-Lopez find the county-pair estimates biased upward when paired counties lie in different commuting zones.
The size of the increase: Jeffrey Clemens and Michael Strain (2021) found that relatively large state increases cut employment rates among low-skilled people by just over 2.5 percentage points. The effects of small increases were, on average, “indistinguishable from zero”.
The measure: in Seattle, hours fell while the chance of staying employed did not.
The group: Neumark and Wascher’s 2007 review found “relatively overwhelming evidence of stronger disemployment effects” for the least-skilled.

Dube and Zipperer’s 2024 repository of minimum wage studies puts the studies on one scale, the own-wage elasticity. The median of 72 studies published in journals is −0.13; the median of the 49 published since 2010 is −0.04, against −0.40 for the 23 published before. On Dube and Zipperer’s reading, job losses in the median study offset about 13 percent of the potential pay gains. The offset is about 40 percent in the median before 2010, and about 4 percent since. Single studies range much more widely.

Own-wage elasticities in five studies and the median of 72 published studies

How to read it: each bar is one study’s own-wage elasticity (defined at the top of the page) in Dube and Zipperer’s 2024 repository. A bar right of zero means employment rose; a bar left of zero means it fell. The table gives each value with the repository’s standard error where it reports one. A standard error measures how precise an estimate is; the larger it is, the less precise. Source: Dube and Zipperer (2024).

Own-wage elasticities and standard errors in Dube and Zipperer’s repository (version 1.0.0, 2024)
Study	Own-wage elasticity	Standard error
Cengiz, Dube, Lindner and Zipperer (2019), 138 state increases	0.411	0.43
Dube, Lester and Reich (2010), border counties	0.079	0.286
Median of 72 studies published in journals	−0.13	Not given
Clemens and Strain (2021), large and small state increases	−0.245	Not reported
Jha, Neumark and Rodriguez-Lopez (2024), commuting zones	−1.485	0.89
Jardim and colleagues (2022), Seattle	−1.75	Not reported

What happens to pay and to poverty

Pay

Wages rose in the Seattle, California and border-county studies. Over a longer span, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that the inflation-adjusted hourly wage of the lowest-paid workers, at the 10th percentile, rose 15.3% from 2019 to 2024. That was more than twice as fast as at the middle, where the rise was 5.8%. At the 90th percentile the rise was 6.9%. Low-end wages grew a little faster in states that raised their minimum wages, but EPI notes that those differences were not statistically significant.

Poverty

Whether higher minimum wages cut poverty is disputed. Arindrajit Dube (2019) found that the long-run elasticity of the non-elderly poverty rate with respect to the minimum wage ranges from −0.220 to −0.459. That means a 10 percent increase in the minimum cuts the poverty rate by about 2 to 5 percent.

But Richard Burkhauser, Drew McNichols and Joseph Sabia (2023) found no statistically significant effect on longer-run poverty. With 95% confidence they rule out elasticities below −0.129, a range that includes Dube’s central estimates. They also found that fewer than 10 percent of workers a proposed $15 federal minimum would affect live in poor families.

The Raise the Wage Act would take the federal minimum to $17 by July 2029. In December 2023 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that it would reduce the number of people in poverty by 0.4 million. On its average estimate, employment in 2029 would be 0.7 million lower; its median is 0.5 million. It gives a one-third chance each to a fall of about 0.5 million to 1.4 million and to a fall of zero to 0.5 million.

What happens to prices

Restaurant prices

Restaurants pass much of the cost on in prices. The studies below measure restaurant prices, not prices across the economy. Daniel Aaronson, Eric French and James MacDonald (2008) found that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage raised restaurant prices by about 0.7 percent. At limited-service restaurants such as fast-food outlets, the rise was about 1.55 percent. Aaronson and colleagues found that over half of the price response came within two months after an increase.

Orley Ashenfelter and Štěpán Jurajda (2021) found a price elasticity with respect to the minimum wage of about 0.14 for the Big Mac. They read it as “a full or near-full price pass-through” of McDonald’s higher labor costs. In California, Sosinskiy and Reich estimate that 60 to 70 percent of the higher wage cost went into prices.

What happens to small businesses and to automation

Small businesses

Nirupama Rao and Max Risch (2026) used ten years of US tax records to follow independent firms in the industries most exposed to minimum wage increases. The average exposed firm did not lay off workers, though it moderately reduced part-time hiring.

Four years on, the average exposed firm’s revenue had grown about 3.3% more than at firms in states that did not raise their minimums. That was enough to cover the new labor costs and leave average owner profits unchanged. Higher minimums held back new firms, mostly less productive ones, cutting the number of independent firms in these industries by about 2%, but the industries did not shrink.

Jesse Wursten and Michael Reich (2023) studied federal and state minimum wage changes from 1990 to 2019 with Census employer data. Pay rose in low-wage industries, most of all in small businesses, and they did not detect any loss of jobs overall. For teenagers, they found modest job losses in smaller businesses.

Dara Lee Luca and Michael Luca (2019) found that a $1 increase in the minimum wage raised the likelihood that a 3.5-star restaurant on Yelp closed by 10 percent. That rating is the median. There was no discernible effect on 5-star restaurants.

Automation

Higher labor costs give firms a reason to replace workers with machines, one of the responses Clemens lists. Grace Lordan and David Neumark (2018) used Current Population Survey data from 1980 to 2015. They found that higher minimum wages significantly reduce the share of automatable jobs held by low-skilled workers. Higher minimum wages also make those workers more likely to end up without work or in worse jobs. Ashenfelter and Jurajda, however, found no association between minimum wage increases and McDonald’s adoption of touch-screen ordering.

The strongest case on each side

The strongest case for higher minimum wages

Pay rises, jobs stayA higher minimum raises pay for millions. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that a $17 federal minimum would directly affect 8.9 million workers whose pay would otherwise be below $17 in an average week of 2029. Card and Krueger, Dube, Lester and Reich, and Cengiz and colleagues found no fall in jobs. But Jha, Neumark and Rodriguez-Lopez overturn the border-county result, and CBO’s average estimate for $17 is 0.7 million fewer jobs.

Less povertyDube (2019) finds “robust evidence that higher minimum wages increase family incomes at the bottom of the distribution”, and a lower poverty rate. But Burkhauser, McNichols and Sabia find no statistically significant effect on poverty.

Firms adaptFirms absorb the cost without cutting jobs. McDonald’s raised prices (Ashenfelter and Jurajda), and independent firms covered it with new revenue (Rao and Risch). Fewer workers left their jobs in Seattle and California (Jardim and colleagues; Dube 2026). But weaker firms pay for it: lower-rated restaurants close more often (Luca and Luca), and there are about 2% fewer independent firms in the most exposed industries (Rao and Risch).

Employer powerWhere employers can set wages, a higher minimum can raise jobs. Azar and colleagues found employment effects “less negative as labor concentration increases” in a low-wage retail sector, and positive in the most concentrated markets. But Aaronson, French and MacDonald read rising restaurant prices as “evidence against the importance of monopsony power” in explaining why employment responses are small.

The strongest case against

Hidden costsThe cost shows up in hours and hiring rather than layoffs. Seattle’s $13 step cut hours and hiring into low-wage jobs (Jardim and colleagues). Jonathan Meer and Jeremy West (2016) find the minimum wage “reduces job growth over a period of several years”, most of all for younger workers. Clemens and Wither find that where the 2007 to 2009 federal increases raised a state’s minimum, they cut employment and income growth among low-skilled workers. But Cengiz and colleagues, counting all low-wage jobs, find the total unchanged over five years.

Large increases are differentClemens and Strain find that relatively large increases cut low-skilled employment. Clemens, Edwards and Meer put the loss from California’s $20 fast-food minimum at 18,000 jobs. But Cengiz and colleagues find no evidence of job loss at higher minimum wages, and two of the three California studies find little or none.

A blunt tool against povertyMost of the gain goes to people who are not poor. Fewer than 10 percent of the workers a $15 federal minimum would affect live in poor families (Burkhauser, McNichols and Sabia). In 2024, workers under 25 were one-fifth of hourly paid workers but 43 percent of those paid $7.25 or less (BLS). But Dube (2019) finds that family incomes at the bottom rise.

Machines replace workersLordan and Neumark find higher minimum wages reduce low-skilled workers’ share of automatable jobs. But Ashenfelter and Jurajda find no link between minimum wage increases and touch-screen ordering at McDonald’s.

The verdict: what the evidence shows

Mostly no. At the minimum wage increases studied so far, job losses have been small on average. Across 72 published studies, the median own-wage elasticity is −0.13, and among the 49 published since 2010 it is −0.04. The increases have not been free, though. Seattle’s $13 step cut hours in low-wage jobs, and relatively large state increases cut low-skilled employment in Clemens and Strain’s study. For California’s $20 fast-food minimum, one study finds a loss of 18,000 jobs where others find little or none.

Wages rise for the workers affected, and restaurant prices rise with them, by about 0.7 percent for each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage. Whether higher minimums reduce poverty is disputed. For a $17 federal minimum, more than twice today’s $7.25, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects 0.7 million fewer jobs (average estimate) and 0.4 million fewer people in poverty.

Five common claims, against the evidence

Claim“Raising the minimum wage destroys millions of jobs.”

Not shownIn the median published study, job losses offset about 13 percent of the potential pay gains (an own-wage elasticity of −0.13 across 72 studies). For a $17 federal minimum, the Congressional Budget Office’s average projection is 0.7 million fewer jobs.

Claim“Raising the minimum wage costs no jobs at all.”

Not shownSeattle’s $13 step cut hours in low-wage jobs by 6 to 7 percent. In Clemens and Strain’s study, relatively large state increases cut low-skilled employment rates by just over 2.5 percentage points.

Claim“California’s $20 fast-food minimum cost jobs.”

DisputedClemens, Edwards and Meer estimate a loss of 18,000 jobs. Sosinskiy and Reich find no fall in employment, and Dube’s 2026 own-wage elasticity with reweighted comparison states is close to zero (−0.04).

Claim“Higher minimum wages reduce poverty.”

DisputedDube (2019) finds that the poverty rate falls; Burkhauser, McNichols and Sabia (2023) find no statistically significant effect. Fewer than 10 percent of the workers a $15 federal minimum would affect live in poor families.

Claim“Higher minimum wages cause runaway inflation.”

Not shownThe studies measure restaurant prices: about 0.7 percent higher for each 10 percent increase in the minimum wage, and 2.1 percent higher after California’s $20 fast-food minimum. None measures prices across the economy.

What would change this conclusion

This article concludes that: (1) at the minimum wage increases studied so far, job losses have been small on average; (2) the evidence on large increases, California’s $20 fast-food minimum among them, is split; (3) wages rise for the workers affected, and restaurant prices rise modestly; (4) whether higher minimum wages reduce poverty is disputed.

These conclusions would be falsified by:

• Studies of California’s $20 fast-food minimum that agree on a clear fall in jobs or hours, or on none. They would use later years of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

• Worker-level records from a state or city that raises its minimum above $15, compared with places whose earlier trends match, showing large losses of jobs or hours

• Linked household and payroll records showing how much of the pay gain reaches families below the poverty line

Sources

Card D, Krueger AB. Minimum wages and employment: a case study of the fast-food industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. American Economic Review, 1994;84(4):772–793. Source for the survey of 410 restaurants, New Jersey’s rise from $4.25 to $5.05 on April 1, 1992, the finding of no indication that employment fell, the prediction of conventional theory credited to Stigler, and the case in which employers set wages. davidcard.berkeley.edu

Neumark D, Wascher W. The effect of New Jersey’s minimum wage increase on fast-food employment: a re-evaluation using payroll records. NBER Working Paper 5224, August 1995. Source for the payroll records from 230 restaurants and the 4.6 percent relative fall. Published as a comment in the American Economic Review, 2000;90(5). nber.org

Card D, Krueger AB. A reanalysis of the effect of the New Jersey minimum wage increase on the fast-food industry with representative payroll data. NBER Working Paper 6386, January 1998. Source for the Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll data, the similar or slightly faster employment growth in New Jersey, and the restaurants owned by one franchisee. Published as a reply in the American Economic Review, 2000;90(5). nber.org

Dube A, Lester TW, Reich M. Minimum wage effects across state borders: estimates using contiguous counties. Review of Economics and Statistics, 2010;92(4):945–964. Source for the comparison of neighboring counties from 1990 to 2006, the rise in restaurant earnings, employment effects indistinguishable from 0, the bound of −0.147 at the 90% level, and the authors’ argument that national studies that do not account for local economic conditions produce spurious negative effects. irle.berkeley.edu

Jha P, Neumark D, Rodriguez-Lopez A. What’s across the border? Re-evaluating the cross-border evidence on minimum wage effects. NBER Working Paper 32901, 2024. Source for what a commuting zone is, the result overturned within commuting zones, and the positive bias the authors find in the county-pair estimates. ideas.repec.org

Cengiz D, Dube A, Lindner A, Zipperer B. The effect of minimum wages on low-wage jobs. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2019;134(3):1405–1454. Source for the 138 state rises from 1979 to 2016, low-wage jobs essentially unchanged over five years, no job loss at higher minimum wages, and fewer jobs in tradable sectors (NBER Working Paper 25434 version). nber.org

Jardim E, Long MC, Plotnick R, van Inwegen E, Vigdor J, Wething H. Minimum wage increases, wages, and low-wage employment: evidence from Seattle. NBER Working Paper 23532, June 2017, revised May 2018. Source for the 6 to 7 percent fall in hours, the 3 percent rise in hourly wages, the $74 a month, and no effect on restaurant employment at all wage levels. nber.org

Jardim E, Long MC, Plotnick R, van Inwegen E, Vigdor J, Wething H. Minimum-wage increases and low-wage employment: evidence from Seattle. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2022;14(2):263–314. Source for Seattle’s rises to $11 and $13, the own-wage elasticities of −0.2 to −2.0 (in its online appendix, elasticities of labor demand with respect to wages), the overstatement in the aggregate analysis, and the findings for individual workers. aeaweb.org

Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, UC Berkeley. Seattle’s minimum wage raises pay without costing jobs. Press release, June 20, 2017. Source for the Berkeley team’s findings on food-service pay and restaurant jobs in Seattle. irle.berkeley.edu

Sosinskiy D, Reich M. Sectoral wage-setting and prices in California. Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, May 2025. Source for the scope and start of the $20 minimum, the data, the 12% rise in average weekly wages without reducing employment, the 2.1% rise in prices (8 cents on a $4 item), and the 60 to 70 percent pass-through. irle.berkeley.edu

Clemens J, Edwards O, Meer J. Did California’s fast food minimum wage reduce employment? NBER Working Paper 34033, July 2025. Source for the 3.2% relative fall in fast-food employment from September 2023 to September 2024 and the 18,000 jobs. nber.org

Dube A. Labor market effects of California’s $20 fast-food minimum wage. NBER Working Paper 35171, May 2026. Source for the rise of about 7% in wages, the own-wage elasticities of −0.19 and −0.04, and the fall in the separation rate. nber.org

Dube A, Zipperer B. Own-wage elasticity: quantifying the impact of minimum wages on employment. NBER Working Paper 32925, September 2024. Source for the own-wage elasticity and its reading, the medians of −0.13 (72 published studies), −0.04 (49 since 2010) and −0.40 (23 before), and the elasticities and standard errors of the five studies in the chart. nber.org

U.S. Census Bureau. Service Annual Survey (SAS): Glossary. Source for what a standard error measures. census.gov

Clemens J, Strain MR. The heterogeneous effects of large and small minimum wage changes: evidence over the short and medium run using a pre-analysis plan. NBER Working Paper 29264, September 2021. Source for the fall of just over 2.5 percentage points in low-skilled employment rates after relatively large rises, and the effects of small ones, indistinguishable from zero on average. nber.org

Neumark D, Wascher W. Minimum wages and employment: a review of evidence from the new minimum wage research. NBER Working Paper 12663, November 2006, revised January 2007. Source for the stronger disemployment effects for the least-skilled. nber.org

Meer J, West J. Effects of the minimum wage on employment dynamics. Journal of Human Resources, 2016;51(2):500–522. Source for the slower job growth over several years, most of all for younger workers (Upjohn Institute Working Paper 15-233 version). research.upjohn.org

Clemens J, Wither M. The minimum wage and the Great Recession: evidence of effects on the employment and income trajectories of low-skilled workers. Journal of Public Economics, 2019;170:53–67. Source for the effects of the 2007 to 2009 federal increases on the employment and income growth of low-skilled workers in the states the increases bound (the authors’ copy of December 30, 2018). The states counted as bound, those whose minimum in January 2008 was below the new federal $6.55, are as the authors’ NBER Working Paper 20724 (December 2014) defines them. econweb.ucsd.edu

Manning A. Monopsony in Motion: Imperfect Competition in Labour Markets. Princeton University Press, 2003. Source for the argument that employers have market power over their workers. personal.lse.ac.uk

Clemens J. How do firms respond to minimum wage increases? Understanding the relevance of non-employment margins. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2021;35(1):51–72. Source for the other ways firms respond. ideas.repec.org

US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. History of federal minimum wage rates under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 1938–2009. Source for every federal rate and date on the page. dol.gov

US Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. State minimum wage laws, updated July 1, 2026. Source for the 30 states and the District of Columbia above $7.25. dol.gov

Bureau of Labor Statistics. Historical Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U): U.S. city average, all items. Source for the annual averages used to put each year’s minimum wage in August 2026 prices. bls.gov

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Mid-Atlantic Information Office. Consumer Price Index historical tables for U.S. city average. Source for the CPI-U of 334.980 in August 2026 and the monthly values of 2025 and 2026. bls.gov

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Federal minimum hourly wage for nonfarm workers for the United States (FEDMINNFRWG). FRED. Source for the $7.25 still in force in September 2026. fred.stlouisfed.org

Bureau of Labor Statistics. Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2024. BLS Reports, June 2025. Source for the 843,000 workers paid $7.25 or less (1.0%) and the share of workers under 25. bls.gov

Gould E, deCourcy K, Fast J, Zipperer B. State of Working America Wages 2024: strong wage growth for low-wage workers bucks the historic trend. Economic Policy Institute, March 24, 2025. Source for the 15.3% rise in the inflation-adjusted hourly wage at the 10th percentile, the lowest-paid workers, from 2019 to 2024, the slower rises at the middle and the 90th percentile (5.8% and 6.9%), and the differences between states, not statistically significant. files.epi.org

Dube A. Minimum wages and the distribution of family incomes. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2019;11(4):268–304. Source for the poverty elasticities of −0.220 to −0.459 and the rise in family incomes at the bottom of the distribution. aeaweb.org

Burkhauser RV, McNichols D, Sabia JJ. Minimum wages and poverty: new evidence from dynamic difference-in-differences estimates. NBER Working Paper 31182, April 2023. Source for the absence of a statistically significant effect on poverty, the bound of −0.129, and the fewer than 10 percent of affected workers who live in poor families. nber.org

Congressional Budget Office. The budgetary and economic effects of S. 2488, the Raise the Wage Act of 2023. December 2023. Source for the $17 minimum by July 2029, the 8.9 million workers directly affected, the 0.4 million fewer people in poverty, the fall in employment of 0.7 million on the average estimate and 0.5 million on the median, and the one-third chances. cbo.gov

Aaronson D, French E, MacDonald J. The minimum wage, restaurant prices, and labor market structure. Journal of Human Resources, 2008;43(3):688–720. Source for the price rises of about 0.7 percent and 1.55 percent for a 10 percent rise in the minimum wage, the timing of the response, and the authors’ reading against monopsony (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago working paper version). chicagofed.org

Ashenfelter O, Jurajda Š. Wages, minimum wages, and price pass-through: the case of McDonald’s restaurants. Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies Working Paper 281, January 2021. Source for the price elasticity of about 0.14, the full or near-full pass-through, and the absence of any association with touch-screen ordering. gceps.princeton.edu

Rao NL, Risch M. Who’s afraid of the minimum wage? Measuring the impacts on independent businesses using matched U.S. tax returns. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2026;141(1):373–427. Source for the tax data, the absence of layoffs and the lower part-time hiring, the rise of about 3.3% in revenue after four years, unchanged average profits, and about 2% fewer independent firms. academic.oup.com

Wursten J, Reich M. Small businesses and the minimum wage. Institute for Research on Labor and Employment Working Paper 102-23, March 2023. Source for the minimum wage changes from 1990 to 2019, the higher pay in small businesses with no job losses detected, and the modest losses for teenagers in smaller businesses. irle.berkeley.edu

Luca DL, Luca M. Survival of the fittest: the impact of the minimum wage on firm exit. NBER Working Paper 25806, May 2019. Source for the 10 percent higher likelihood of exit for a 3.5-star restaurant and no discernible effect on 5-star restaurants. nber.org

Lordan G, Neumark D. People versus machines: the impact of minimum wages on automatable jobs. Labour Economics, 2018;52:40–53. Source for the fall in low-skilled workers’ share of automatable jobs, from Current Population Survey data for 1980 to 2015 (NBER Working Paper 23667 version). nber.org

Azar J, Huet-Vaughn E, Marinescu I, Taska B, von Wachter T. Minimum wage employment effects and labour market concentration. Review of Economic Studies, 2024;91(4):1843–1883. Source for employment effects less negative as labor concentration increases, and positive in the most concentrated markets (NBER Working Paper 26101 version). nber.org

Cite this article TruthBased.org. “Does Raising the Minimum Wage Kill Jobs?” Updated November 2026. https://www.truthbased.org/does-raising-the-minimum-wage-kill-jobs