The Case of the Minimum Wage: Competing Policy Models

By Oren M. Levin-Waldman

Places contemporary minimum wage debates in historical context, stressing the importance of political as opposed to economic variables.

This book traces the historical evolution of minimum-wage policy and explains how models are used (and misused) by different interests to achieve their particular aims. Minimum-wage policy was initially legitimated as a broader labor-market policy aimed at achieving greater productivity and labor-market stability. As organized labor has declined as a political force in the last twenty years, the nature of the debate has metamorphized into a narrowly focused and often highly technical discussion concerned with specific effects of given specific increases in the minimum wage, such as either relieving poverty or the so-called adverse effects on youth unemployment. This change has coincided with the greatest stagnation of the minimum wage.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0791448568
• ISBN13: 9780791448564
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 250 Pages
• Weight: 0.73 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A good read!

Timeless Places: Morocco is an enjoyable read, which takes the reader (and the viewer) to a land which is filled with mystery and mysticism. The language is poetic, and the photography is breathtaking. This book was cool! I couldn't put it down. Dr. Levin-Waldman blows the lid off the latent hippocracy behind the minimum wage "debate" with real statistics and voting records. When I first started reading the book, I was under the impression that the various parties in the "dialogue" over the minimum wage had hardly changed their positions, and boy was I ever wrong! This book is a must read