Employment Demand, The Minimum Wage and Labor Costs

摘要

For the private non-farm sector, and for each of three major industries, three labor cost series have been developed using BLS data on compensation, Chamber of Commerce series on fringes, and industry average hourly earnings data. These three are: (1) AHE; (2) cost per hour actually worked; and (3) number 2, adjusted for changes in the cost of training. Clearly, these measures are listed in order of increasing complexity and, presumably, in order of increasing appropriateness for use in the analysis of the effects of the minimum wage. These three measures were combined with unpublished CPS data (provided by the Commission's staff) on teenage (14-19) and other employment to derive three series on effective wage minima. Essentially these are coverage-weighted measures of the minimum wage relative to labor costs in the sector.