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Working Paper

Minimum Wage Increases and Vacancies

We estimate the impact of minimum-wage increases on the quantity of labor demanded as measured by firms’ vacancy postings. We use propriety, county-level vacancy data from the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online database. Our identification relies on the disproportionate effects of minimum-wage hikes on different occupations, as the wage distribution around the binding minimum wage differs by occupation. We find that minimum-wage increases during the 2005-2018 period have led to substantial declines in vacancy postings in at-risk occupations, occupations with a larger share of employment around the prevailing minimum wage. Our estimate implies that a 10 percent increase in the binding minimum- wage level reduces vacancies by 2.4 percent in this group. The negative effect is concentrated not exclusively in the routine jobs, but more in the manual occupations.

Suggested Citation

Kudlyak, Marianna, Murat Tasci, and Didem Tüzemen. 2019. “Minimum Wage Increases and Vacancies.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 19-30. https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-201930