The Economic Impact of a High National Minimum Wage: Evidence from the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act

Martha Bailey; John DiNardo; Bryan A Stuart

doi:10.1086/712554

The Economic Impact of a High National Minimum Wage: Evidence from the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act

Martha Bailey^1,2; John DiNardo^3,4,1; Bryan A Stuart⁵

¹ University of Michigan–Ann Arbor · ² University of California System · ³ Ford Motor Company (United States) · ⁴ State Street (United States) · ⁵ George Washington University

Journal of Labor Economics 2021 open access

This paper examines the short and longer-term economic effects of the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which increased the national minimum wage to its highest level of the 20th Century and extended coverage to an additional 9.1 million workers. Exploiting differences in the "bite" of the minimum wage due to regional variation in the standard of living and industry composition, this paper finds that the 1966 FLSA increased wages dramatically but reduced aggregate employment only modestly. However, the disemployment effects were significantly larger among African-American men, forty percent of whom earned below the new minimum wage in 1966.

DOI: 10.1086/712554
Volume: 39 (S2)
Pages: S329-S367
Language: en
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