2018年美国最低工资增长调查.pdf

The Effects on Employment and Family Income of Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage JULY 2019 CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICEAt a Glance The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour for most workers. The Congressional Budget Office examined how increasing the federal minimum wage to $10, $12, or $15 per hour by 2025 would affect employment and family income. In an average week in 2025, the $15 option would boost the wages of 17 million workers who would otherwise earn less than $15 per hour. Another 10 million workers otherwise earning slightly more than $15 per hour might see their wages rise as well. But 1.3 million other workers would become jobless, according to CBOs median estimate. There is a two- thirds chance that the change in employment would be between about zero and a decrease of 3.7 million workers. The number of people with annual income below the poverty threshold in 2025 would fall by 1.3 million. The $12 option would have smaller effects. In an average week in 2025, it would increase wages for 5 million workers who would otherwise earn less than $12 per hour. Another 6 million workers otherwise earning slightly more than $12 per hour might see their wages rise as well. But the option would cause 0.3 million other workers to be jobless. There is a two-thirds chance that the change in employment would be between about zero and a decrease of 0.8 million workers. The number of people with annual income below the poverty threshold in 2025 would fall by 0.4 million. The $10 option would have still smaller effects. It would raise wages for 1.5 million workers who would otherwise earn less than $10 per hour. Another 2 million workers who would otherwise earn slightly more than $10 per hour might see their wages rise as well. The option would have little effect on employment in an average week in 2025. There is a two- thirds chance that the change in employment would be between about zero and a decrease of 0.1 million workers. This option would have negligible effects on the number of people in poverty. The two main sources of uncertainty about the changes in employment are uncertainty about wage growth under current law and uncertainty about the responsiveness of employment to a wage increase. cbo.gov/publication/55410Contents Summary 1 What Options for Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage Did CBO Examine? 1 What Effects Would the Options Have? 1 Why Are the Outcomes Uncertain? 5 The Current Federal Minimum Wage 5 Three Options for Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage 5 The $15 Option 6 The $12 Option 7 The $10 Option 8 How Increases in the Minimum Wage Affect Employment and Family Income 8 Employment 9 Family Income 11 Effects of the Three Options on Employment and Family Income 12 Effects of the Options on Employment 12 BOX 1. HOW AN INCREASE IN THE MINIMUM WAGE WOULD AFFECT THE FEDERAL BUDGET 13 Effects of the Options on Family Income 14 BOX 2. THE MINIMUM WAGE AND THE EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT 18 Uncertainty About the Estimates 19 Appendix A: The Basis for CBOs Findings 21 Appendix B: Research About the Effects of Minimum-Wage Increases 39 List of Tables and Figures 47 About This Document 48Notes Numbers in the text, tables, and figures may not add up to totals because of rounding. Federal minimum wages are expressed in nominal (current-year) dollars. Unless otherwise indicated, other dollar values are expressed in 2018 dollars, adjusted to remove the effects of inflation using the price index for personal consumption expenditures published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The data underlying the figures in this report are posted along with the report on CBOs website (cbo.gov/publication/55410). The Effects on Employment and Family Income of Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage Summary The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not changed since 2009, though many states and localities have set their minimum wage above that level. Increasing the federal minimum wage would have two principal effects on low-wage workers. For most low-wage workers, earnings and family income would increase, which would lift some families out of poverty. But other low-wage workers would become jobless, and their family income would fallin some cases, below the poverty threshold. What Options for Increasing the Federal Minimum Wage Did CBO Examine? The Congressional Budget Office examined three options for increasing the federal minimum wage. The first option would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour as of January 1, 2025. That increase would be implemented in six annual increments starting on January 1, 2020. After reaching $15 in 2025, the minimum wage would be indexed, or tied, to median hourly wages. The $15 option would also gradually eliminate exceptions to the minimum wage for tipped workers, teenage workers, and disabled workers. The second option would raise the federal minimum wage to $12 per hour as of January 1, 2025. The $12 option would be implemented on the same timeline as the $15 option but would not index the minimum wage to wage growth after 2025. It would leave in place current exceptions. The third option would raise the federal minimum wage to $10 per hour as of January 1, 2025. The $10 option would be implemented on the same timeline as the $15 and $12 options. Like the $12 option, it would not index the minimum wage to wage growth and would leave in place current exceptions. What Effects Would the Options Have? Of the three options, the $15 option would have the largest effects on employment and family income (see Figure 1). That is because it would increase wages for the most workers, because it would impose the largest increases in wages, and because, in CBOs estimation, employment is more responsive to relatively large wage increases and increases that will be adjusted for future wage growth. The $12 option would have smaller effects, and the effects of the $10 option would be smaller still. There is considerable uncertainty about the size of any options effect on employment. CBOs estimates are based on the median values of likely ranges for wage growth and the responsiveness of employment to changes in wages. In particular, the likely ranges for the respon- siveness parameter are not symmetric: That value has an equal chance of being smaller or larger than the median, but if it is larger, it could be substantially larger. Effects of the $15 Option on Employment and Income. According to CBOs median estimate, under the $15 option, 1.3 million workers who would otherwise be employed would be jobless in an average week in 2025. (That would equal a 0.8 percent reduction in the number of employed workers.) CBO estimates that there is about a two-thirds chance that the change in employment would lie between about zero and a reduction of 3.7 mil - lion workers (see Table 1). In addition, in an average week in 2025, the $15 option would increase the wages of 17 million workers whose wages would otherwise be below $15 per hour, CBO estimates. The wages of many of the 10 million workers whose wages would be slightly above the new federal minimum would also increase.2 The effec Ts on employmenT and f amily i ncome of i ncreasing The federal m inimum Wage July 2019 The $15 option would affect family income in a variety of ways. In CBOs estimation, it would: Boost workers earnings through higher wages, though some of those higher earnings would be offset by higher rates of joblessness; Reduce business income and raise prices as higher labor costs were absorbed by business owners and then passed on to consumers; and Reduce the nations output slightly through the reduction in employment and a corresponding decline in the nations stock of capital (such as buildings, machines, and technologies). On the basis of those effects and CBOs estimate of the median effect on employment, the $15 option would reduce total real (inflation-adjusted) family income in 2025 by $9 billion, or 0.1 percent. 1 1. That dollar amount and others in this report are expressed in 2018 dollars, unless otherwise indicated. Figure 1 . Effects of Increases in the Federal Minimum Wage on Employment and Family Income, 2025 FmyIcmPv y d dE m yg b Source: Congressional Budget Office, using monthly and annual data from the Census Bureaus Current Population Survey. The options would raise the minimum wage to $15, $12, and $10, respectively, in six steps between January 1, 2020, and January 1, 2025. Under the $15 option, the minimum wage would then be indexed to median hourly wages; under the $12 and $10 options, it would not. Changes in real (inflation-adjusted) income reflect changes in before-tax family cash income. Those changes include increases in earnings for workers who would receive a higher wage, decreases in earnings for workers who would become jobless, losses in income for business owners, and decreases in income because of increases in prices. The definitions of income and of poverty thresholds are those used by the Census Bureau to determine the official poverty rate. CBO projects that in 2025, the poverty threshold (in 2018 dollars) will be $20,480 for a family of three and $26,330 for a family of four. a. Median estimates are calculated using median values of likely ranges for wage growth and the responsiveness of employment to changes in wages. b. In CBOs assessment, there is a two-thirds chance that the effect would be within this range.3 July 2019 The effec Ts on employmenT and f amily i ncome of i ncreasing The federal m inimum Wage T able 1 . Effects of Increases in the Federal Minimum Wage on Employment, Income, and Poverty, 2025 Option $15 $12 $10 Change in Employment in an Average Week (Millions of workers) Median estimatea -1.3 -0.3 * Likely rangeb Low end * * * High end -3.7 -0.8 -0.1 Number of Workers Who Could See Increases in Their Earnings in an Average Week (Millions) Directly affected workersc 17.0 5.0 1.5 Potentially affected workersd 10.3 6.4 1.9 Change in Real Annual Income Families with income below the poverty threshold Billions of 2018 dollars 7.7 2.3 0.4 Percentage 5.3 1.6 0.3 Families with income between one and three times the poverty threshold Billions of 2018 dollars 14.2 2.3 0.3 Percentage 3.5 0.6 * Families with income between three and six times the poverty threshold Billions of 2018 dollars -2.1 -0.3 * Percentage -0.1 * * Families with income more than six times the poverty threshold Billions of 2018 dollars -28.4 -5.1 -0.6 Percentage -0.3 -0.1 * All families Billions of 2018 dollars -8.7 -0.8 -0.1 Percentage -0.1 * * Change in the Number of People in Poverty (Millions)e -1.3 -0.4 * Source: Congressional Budget Office, using monthly and annual data from the Census Bureaus Current Population Survey. The options would raise the minimum wage to $15, $12, and $10, respectively, in six steps between January 1, 2020, and January 1, 2025. Under the $15 option, the minimum wage would then be indexed to median hourly wages; under the $12 and $10 options, it would not. Changes in real (inflation-adjusted) income reflect changes in before-tax family cash income. Those changes include increases in earnings for workers who would receive a higher wage, decreases in earnings for workers who would become jobless, losses in income for business owners, and decreases in income because of increases in prices. The percentage change in total real annual income shown here is consistent with but not necessarily equal to the percentage change in average annual real family income shown elsewhere in this report. The definitions of income and of poverty thresholds are those used by the Census Bureau to determine the official poverty rate. CBO projects that in 2025, the poverty threshold (in 2018 dollars) will be $20,480 for a family of three and $26,330 for a family of four. * = between 0.05 million and 0.05 million; * = between 0.05 percent and 0.05 percent; * = between 0.05 billion and 0.05 billion. a. Median estimates are calculated using median values of likely ranges for wage growth and the responsiveness of employment to changes in wages. b. In CBOs assessment, there is a two-thirds chance that the effect would be within this range. c. Directly affected workers are those whose hourly wage, in the absence of the change in the minimum wage, would range from just below the old minimum to the new, higher minimum. All of those workers would either be jobless or see increases in their earnings in an average week. d. Potentially affected workers are those whose hourly wages are above the proposed minimum wagespecifically, between the proposed minimum and that amount plus 50 percent of the increase in their applicable minimum wage. Only some of those workers would have increased earnings under the options. e. Calculated using before-tax family cash income.4 The effec Ts on employmenT and f amily i ncome of i ncreasing The federal m inimum Wage July 2019 The effects of those income changes would vary across families. Changes in earnings would mainly affect low-income families, but many higher-income families would be affected, too. The loss in business income would be mostly borne by families well above the pov- erty line. All consumers would pay higher prices, but higher-income families, who spend more, would pay more of those costs. And the cost of effects on the overall economy would generally accrue to families in propor- tion to their income, which means they would largely be absorbed by families with income well above the poverty threshold. Taking those effects into account, CBO estimates that families whose income would be below the poverty threshold under current law would receive an additional $8 billion in real family income in 2025 under this option. That would amount to a 5.3 percent increase in income, on average, for such families. That extra income would move, on net, roughly 1.3 million people out of poverty. Real income would fall by about $16 billion for families above the poverty line; that would reduce their total income by about 0.1 percent. Effects of the $12 Option on Employment and Income. Under the $12 option, according to CBOs median estimate, about 0.3 million workers who would other- wise be employed would be jobless in an average week in 2025. (In percentage ter