Income Inequality & the Minimum Wage

Articles

Mantel, Barbara. "Minimum Wage: Would raising the rate be good for the economy?" CQ Researcher 24 Jan. 2014. Political pressure is building on Congress to raise the federal minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25 an hour since 2009. Polls show a majority of Americans support the idea;
low-wage workers have staged protests demanding higher pay; and 21 states have set their own hourly minimums at more than $7.25. Congressional Democrats have introduced legislation to raise the federal minimum to $10.10 an hour, to be phased in over a little more than two years, and President Obama has expressed support for the measure. But business groups, including the National Restaurant Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, strongly oppose an increase, saying it would force fast-food outlets, retailers and other employers to eliminate jobs for the poorest, lowest-skilled workers. Supporters of an increase say raising the minimum would cause minimal job loss while putting money into the hands of low-wage workers who would spend it, boosting the economy. The debate over the federal minimum wage is likely to run through this year's mid-term elections as Democrats have promised to try to make raising the minimum a wedge issue.
From the CQ Researcher. Reprinted with permission from CQ Press.

Billitteri, Thomas J. "Gender Pay Gap: Are women paid fairly in the workplace?" CQ Researcher, March 14, 2008.


EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier Searches

• income inequality and united states
• minimum wage and united states
• ( pay or wage* or salar* ) and ( equit* or differential* or equal ) and ( gender or sex )

Books

•  Milanovic, Branko. Haves and the Have-Nots : A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality. Basic Books New York, 2010.  Ebrary.
  

• Neumark, David and William L. Wascher.  Minimum Wages. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA: 2008. Ebrary.

Gale Virtual Reference

"Distribution of Income." or "Minimum Wage" in Everyday Finance: Economics, Personal Money Management, and Entrepreneurship. Detroit: Gale, 2008.

"Comparable Worth." or "Equal Pay Act of 1963." in West's Encyclopedia of American Law. Ed. Shirelle Phelps and Jeffrey Lehman. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2005.

Global Issues in Context:  Wealth Divide - Portal page providing an overview and full text articles from international newspapers, magazines, journals, reference sources and statistics.

Web

The Equality of Opportunity Project - videos, slides, graphics and data sets for two recent studies:

• Chetty, Raj et al. "Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States." NBER Working Paper No. 19843, January 2014.
• Chetty, Raj et al. "Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility." NBER Working Paper No. 19844, January 2014.