This paper tests a textbook consequence of competitive markets: that an industry-wide increase in the price of labor is passed on to consumers through an increase in prices. Using several data sources on restaurant prices, I explore the price impact of minimum-wage hikes in Canada and the United States. Particular attention is paid to the timing of these price responses to gauge the ‘stickiness’ of minimum-wage cost shocks. I find that restaurant prices generally rise with changes in the wage bill and that this response is concentrated in the quarter surrounding the month during which the legislation is enacted.

This paper uses minimum wage hikes to evaluate the susceptibility of low-wage employment to technological substitution. We find that automation is accelerating and supplanting a broader set of low-wage routine jobs since the 2008–2009 financial crisis. Simultaneously, low-wage interpersonal jobs are increasing and offsetting routine job loss. However, interpersonal job growth does not appear to be enough, as it was prior to the financial crisis, to fully offset the negative effects of automation on low-wage routine jobs. Employment losses are most evident among non-Asian people of color who experience outsized losses at routine jobs and smaller gains at interpersonal jobs.