Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality*

2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 169-228
Author(s):  
Ellora Derenoncourt ◽  
Claire Montialoux
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hourly Wage ◽  
Black Workers ◽  
Wage Policy ◽  
The Impact

Abstract The earnings difference between white and black workers fell dramatically in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This article shows that the expansion of the minimum wage played a critical role in this decline. The 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act extended federal minimum wage coverage to agriculture, restaurants, nursing homes, and other services that were previously uncovered and where nearly a third of black workers were employed. We digitize over 1,000 hourly wage distributions from Bureau of Labor Statistics industry wage reports and use CPS microdata to investigate the effects of this reform on wages, employment, and racial inequality. Using a cross-industry difference-in-differences design, we show that earnings rose sharply for workers in the newly covered industries. The impact was nearly twice as large for black workers as for white workers. Within treated industries, the racial gap adjusted for observables fell from 25 log points prereform to 0 afterward. We can rule out significant disemployment effects for black workers. Using a bunching design, we find no aggregate effect of the reform on employment. The 1967 extension of the minimum wage can explain more than 20% of the reduction in the racial earnings and income gap during the civil rights era. Our findings shed new light on the dynamics of labor market inequality in the United States and suggest that minimum wage policy can play a critical role in reducing racial economic disparities.

The Migratory Impact of Minimum Wage Legislation: Puerto Rico, 1970–1987

1993 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 772-795
Author(s):  
Carlos E. Santiago
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Capital Investment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Multiple Time ◽  
Wage Setting ◽  
Wage Policy ◽  
The Impact

Minimum wage research has historically focused on labor mobility between covered and uncovered labor markets within a geographic area. This study examines the impact of minimum wage setting on labor migration. A multiple time series framework is applied to monthly data for Puerto Rico from 1970–1987. The results show that net emigration from Puerto Rico to the United States fell in response to significant changes in the manner in which minimum wage policy was conducted, particularly after 1974. The extent of commuter type labor migration between Puerto Rico and the United States is influenced by minimum wage policy, with potentially important consequences for human capital investment and long-term standards of living.

The Congressional Black Caucus and the Closure of NASA’s Satellite Tracking Station at Hartebeesthoek, South Africa

2019 ◽  
pp. 167-180
Author(s):  
Keith Snedegar
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Satellite Tracking ◽  
Global Issues ◽  
Tracking Station ◽  
Minority Regime ◽  
The Impact

Keith Snedegar explores the impact of the civil rights movement on decisions related to NASA facilities outside the United States. Snedegar maintains that when Charles C. Diggs Jr., one of the founders of the Black Congressional Caucus, visited the NASA satellite tracking station at Hartesbeesthoek, South Africa, in 1971, he discovered a racially segregated facility where technical jobs were reserved for white employees and black Africans essentially performed menial labor. Upon his return to the United States, the Detroit congressman embarked on a two-year struggle, first to improve workplace equity at the tracking station, and later, for the closure of the facility. NASA administration under James Fletcher was largely indifferent to demands for change at the station. It was only after Representative Charles Rangel proposed a reduction in NASA appropriations did the agency announce plans to end its working relationship with the white minority regime of South Africa. NASA’s public statements suggested that a scientific rationale lay behind the station’s eventual closure in 1975, but this episode clearly indicates that NASA was acting only under political pressure, and its management remained largely insensitive to global issues of racial equality.

Educating Students with Chronic Illness

2020 ◽  
pp. 578-597
Author(s):  
Margaret Tseng ◽  
Rebecca Magee Pluta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle School ◽  
Chronic Illness ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
Middle School Student ◽  
Physical Location ◽  
Available Technology ◽  
The Impact

Students with chronic illness have historically received an education via home and hospital instruction during their absences. This instruction is significantly inferior in both quality and quantity when compared with the educational experience of students able to attend school. This case study details the experiences of a middle school student in the mid-Atlantic Region of the United States whose chronic illness presented unique and multifaceted challenges that could not be met by her district's inflexible policies and disconnected resources. This case illuminates the need for schools to break away from the traditional administrative special education mold when responding to the challenges of educating frequently absent students with chronic illness. The educational Civil Rights of these students can be preserved, however, by utilizing affordable, available technology to minimize the impact of frequently missed classes, provide continuity of instruction and allow educational access regardless of a student's physical location during their absences from school.

Speak No Evil

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Hardt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The United States ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
International Media ◽  
Institutional Memory ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Different Sources

As a fourth empirical chapter, Chapter 6 identifies the sources that motivate elites to share their knowledge of strategic errors. Employing a survey experiment on elites, the chapter presents hypotheses about the impact of three different sources: the United States, NATO's secretariat and international media. Surprisingly, experimental results indicate that NATO elites are less likely to record or share knowledge of a strategic error if an action is framed as such by the United States. Results also demonstrate that NATO elites are slightly more likely to record if the action is framed as such an error by the secretariat. The chapter concludes with a discussion of why a powerful state would counter-intuitively have a dampening effect on an international organization’s capacity for retaining knowledge across time and space. Findings support the book’s argument that the secretariat plays a critical role in facilitating the development of institutional memory about past strategic errors.

Goodwill Ambassadors

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Damion Thomas
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Government ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Political Purpose ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the “challenges, contradictions, and political nature” of African American sports emissaries during the early Cold War era. Recognizing the impact that Soviet declarations of American mistreatment of blacks were having on global public opinion about the United States, government officials planned goodwill trips that provided opportunities for people around the world to meet successful African Americans whose abilities on the playing field and loyalty to the nation represented a positive counterweight to the claims being posited by adversaries of the United States. The chapter devotes special attention to athletes' response to the program, most of whom were initially unaware of the underlying political purpose of their trips. There was an unintended politicizing effect for the athletes, as many used the forum to distance themselves from domestic policies, push for civil rights, and find common cause with subjugated peoples around the world. An increased unwillingness for citizen diplomats to “stay on message” resulted in the programs being scaled back in the late 1960s.

From civil rights to social policy: the political development of family and medical leave policy

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Kumar Ramanathan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Maternity Leave ◽  
The United States ◽  
Medical Leave ◽  
Leave Policy ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Family and medical leave policy in the United States is often noted for its lack of wage compensation, but is also distinctive in its gender neutrality and its broad coverage of several types of leave (combining pregnancy leave with medical, parental, and caregiving leave). This article argues that the distinctive design of leave policy in the United States is explained by its origins in contestation over the civil rights policy regime that emerged in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, women's movement advocates creatively and strategically formulated demands for maternity leave provision that fit an interpretation of this new policy regime's antidiscrimination logic. Because of this decision to advance an antidiscrimination claim, advocates became committed to pursuing a leave guarantee on gender-neutral grounds, which in turn enabled the broad-coverage leave design. This case study suggests that scholars of social policy and American political development should pay greater attention to the impact of civil rights on social policy. This article also contributes to the study of policy development by providing an example of how political actors cross boundaries between policy domains during the policy making process and by presenting a reconceptualization of “policy regimes.”

scholarly journals Analysis of the Economic Impact of the US Presidential Candidates on the United States and China

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
Pengzhi Yin ◽  
Jiasi Peng
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Economic Impact ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
Energy Technology ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Impact

The presidential election of art and industry: the contest between Trump and Biden has been staged. They have different tax, minimum wage, energy, technology, trade and other strategies, which will inevitably have an impact on the economy of the United States and China. Our team chose this mathematician modeling project to scientifically evaluate the impact of the new president of the United States on the economy of the two countries, and put forward our coping strategies.

Rich Thanks to Racism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Freeman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Prison Population ◽  
The United States ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Road Map ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
Bill Gates

More than fifty years after the civil rights movement, there are still glaring racial inequities all across the United States. This book explains why this is so, as it reveals the hidden strategy behind systemic racism. The book details how the driving force behind the public policies that continue to devastate communities of color across the United States is a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals who profit mightily from racial inequality. The book carefully dissects the cruel and deeply harmful policies within the education, criminal justice, and immigration systems to discover their origins and why they persist. It uncovers billions of dollars in aligned investments by Bill Gates, Charles Koch, Mark Zuckerberg, and a handful of other billionaires that are dismantling public school systems across the United States. The book exposes how the greed of prominent US corporations and Wall Street banks was instrumental in creating the world's largest prison population and extreme anti-immigrant policies. It also demonstrates how these “racism profiteers” prevent flagrant injustices from being addressed by pitting white communities against communities of color, obscuring the fact that the struggles faced by white people are deeply connected with those faced by people of color. The book is an invaluable road map for all those who recognize that the key to unlocking the United States' full potential is for more people of all races and ethnicities to prioritize racial justice.

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