Minimum Wage Laws: Varying Impacts on Different Locations

Minimum wage laws have been a contentious topic in the realm of political legislation, and the economic discourse has been no slouch in fanning the fire. This paper serves to provide an idea for examining the effects of minimum wage laws by analyzing how the same minimum wage laws impact different areas that have variations in income and living standards. Following standard economic analysis, the unemployment effect will be greater when there is a greater difference between the minimum wage and the equilibrium wage. The varying effect can be seen in areas with the same minimum wage laws and similar jurisdictions, but differing factors that cause greater or lesser rifts in employment. I provide a preliminary examination of different localities in California as an example of a state wage’s effect in different geographical areas within the same jurisdiction. Within data limitations, I do not find a strong effect, but provide discussion for future research methods and data examination that can be used for this analysis.