Arin Dube

In other work that I have done, I've said, well, maybe there are different things going on.

We can compare...

just neighboring counties, just one side of the border raised it, another didn't.

So very similar otherwise.

And I show this in the, in the Substack post, you can compare the neighboring counties across the state line.

Again, clear change in wage, absolutely no change in relative employment in the two sides.

And there are other things you could do.

You could look at broader set of industries of low wages, et cetera.

And the story doesn't change.

Now, what, so what

How do employers actually absorb this?

And that actually gets to an important thing to recognize.

And so I talk about this in the book called the three Ps.

So first of all, there's some productivity offset.

Higher wage does increase productivity in a couple different ways.

And that doesn't pay for itself, but it does offset some of the costs in higher wages.

Then there's some reduction in profits, but then the final piece is prices.

And here it is true that a higher minimum wage does lead to somewhat higher prices for particular goods and services, particularly like a burger may cost a bit more.

If you look at the overall

cost of living in an estate, it is not visibly affected by a minimum wage, but particular things may cost a bit more in order for lower wage workers to have a higher pay.