President Obama Cites IRLE-Supported Wage Research in the State of the Union Address

POTUS SOTUIRLE Director Michael Reich has long collaborated with Arindrajit Dube and T. William Lester and has published a number of influential articles on the subject, which the White House cited (see Arindrajit Dube, T. William Lester, and Michael Reich, 2010, "Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties PDF," Review of Economics and Statistics). Although the President's goal of raising the federal minimum wage faces an uphill battle in Congress, his move to propose such legislation was reinforced by the new empirical studies of minimum wage dynamics. For this reason, IRLE Director Reich anticipates continued study of this issue. "IRLE will continue to explore minimum wage dynamics," he said. "For many years the debate about the minimum wage was dominated by the 'job killer' argument, but these new  findings provide a solid underpinning for policy makers who would like to gain a better understanding of how  minimum  wages perform in the real world."

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