TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Blau, Francine D.
AU  - Cohen, Isaac
AU  - Comey, Matthew
AU  - Kahn, Lawrence M.
AU  - Boboshko, Nikolai
        TI  - The Minimum Wage and Inequality Between Groups
        PY  - 2025/Dec/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 18345
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp18345
        AB  - Using 1979-2019 Current Population Survey data, we study the effect of state and federal minimum wage policies on gender, race, and ethnic inequality. We find that minimum wages substantially reduce intergroup wage inequality at least up to the 20th wage percentile, with no evidence of adverse employment effects. We conduct counterfactual simulations of between-group inequality due to minimum wage changes since 1979. Declines in the real minimum wage in the 1980s slowed progress in narrowing between-group inequality. Relatively small changes in minimum wages during 1989-1998 and 1998-2007 meant little role for the minimum wage over those time spans. Since 2007, several states have steeply raised their minimum wages, especially raising Hispanics’ relative wages, because they earn low wages and reside disproportionately in those states.  Finally, we find that raising the federal minimum wage to $12/hour in 2020 dollars ($14.49 in 2025Q2 dollars) would reduce existing between-group wage gaps below the 15th percentile by 25-50%.
        KW  - Hispanic-White wage gaps
KW  - race wage gaps
KW  - gender wage gaps
KW  - wage differentials
KW  - wage distribution
KW  - minimum wage
KW  - wage inequality
        ER  -