Zachary S. Fone
Economics Department
University of New Hampshire
10 Garrison Ave.
Durham, NH 03824
United States
E-Mail: 
Institutional Affiliation: University of New Hampshire
Information about this author at RePEc
NBER Working Papers and Publications
| March 2019 | Do Minimum Wage Increases Reduce Crime?
with Joseph J. Sabia, Resul Cesur: w25647
An April 2016 Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) report advocated raising the minimum wage to deter crime. This recommendation rests on the assumption that minimum wage hikes increase the returns to legitimate labor market work while generating minimal adverse employment effects. This study comprehensively assesses the impact of minimum wages on crime using data from the 1998-2016 Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY). Our results provide no evidence that minimum wage increases reduce crime. Instead, we find that raising the minimum wage increases property crime arrests among those ages 16-to-24, with an estimated elasticity of 0.2. This result is strongest in counties with over 100,000 residents and... |
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