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Table 7 Estimated effects of living wages on log wages and employment in other ranges of the wage or predicted wage distribution (for employment) living wages defined at MSA/PMSA level, updated, 1996-2004

From: The effects of living wage laws on low-wage workers and low-income families: What do we know now?

 

0th-10thpercentile

10th-25thpercentile

25th-50thpercentile

 

(1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

(5)

(6)

Dependent variable:

Wages

Employment

Wages

Employment

Wages

Employment

Specification 1

Log living wage, lagged 12 months

0.037

−0.052**

−0.013

0.000

−0.013

−0.003

(0.034)

(0.017)

(0.019)

(0.024)

(0.021)

(0.017)

Specification 2

Business assistance living wage laws:

Log living wage, lagged 12 months

0.051

−0.055**

−0.018

0.017

−0.029

0.013

(0.041)

(0.023)

(0.028)

(0.022)

(0.030)

(0.011)

Contractor-only living wage laws:

Log living wage, lagged 12 months

0.020

−0.048**

−0.006

−0.019

0.006

−0.022

(0.056)

(0.023)

(0.025)

(0.045)

(0.025)

(0.033)

N

53,038

109,725

65,812

158,308

109,064

263,897

  1. See notes to Table 3. ‘**’ (‘*’) superscript indicates estimate is statistically significant at five-percent (ten-percent) level. All specifications have city-specific trends. Columns (1)-(2) include observations less than or equal to the 10th percentile; columns (3)-(4) from greater than the 10th to less than or equal to the 25th; and columns (5)-(6) from greater than the 25th to less than or equal to the 50th. Note that the sample sizes do not change in close proportions to the percentage of observations in each range based solely on the percentiles. This occurs because the percentiles are calculated for fairly small samples in many instances (since they are computed for city-month cells), so there are often large numbers of ties in the rankings of observations. We define the samples in the different columns as explained earlier in the note, so in some cases the share of observations in a range can substantially exceed or fall short of the strict definition. (For example, if there are many observations on either side of the 10th percentile, but the 25th percentile is higher, then more than one-tenth of the observations will be in the lower decile.) Reported standard errors are robust to nonindependence (and heteroscedasticity) within city cells (clustered by city).