Does Raising the Minimum Wage Help Low-income Workers?

Florida overwhelmingly voted to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour; and nationwide surveys suggest that two-thirds of Americans support increasing the federal minimum wage. As broad support for this policy grows, understanding who benefits from increases to the minimum wage becomes more important. On this episode of EconoFact Chats, Michael Klein speaks with Jonathan Meer at Texas A&M University, whose research spans many areas of economics, among them, the effects of raising the minimum wage. The discussion focuses on whether minimum wage increases help low-income workers, whether they lead to job losses or reductions in other job-related benefits, and which policy options might do more to help workers at the lower end of the wage distribution.