The Minimum-Wage Debate and Its Implications for Unions

Catherine P. Mulder

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DOI: 10.2190/CN.32.1.b

Abstract

This article summarizes the current Congressional debate about whether or not to raise the minimum wage and the implication of raising that wage for unions. Since the minimum wage has not been increased in a decade, its real value is at its lowest point since 1960, and conservatives in Congress are concerned that raising it would have severe negative consequences on business, particularly small business. As discussed below, however, this argument is not empirically supported. Therefore, an investigation into the role unions play in the debate and how more union-friendly states regard the lowest paid workers are presented. Two multiple regression equations are provided to show the correlation between the minimum wage and how unions figure into the debate.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.