Research
Research
Abstract: Since 1995, nearly 60 cities across the U.S. have implemented two-tiered living wage ordinances, which set a lower wage level for employees receiving health insurance from their employer. Low-wage workers have generally lower levels of access to employer-provided benefits such as health insurance, and public costs occur from providing public health insurance or health care to uninsured individuals. This feature of living wage laws, which sets a minimum standard of health insurance for eligibility, aims to increase access to employer-provided health insurance for low-wage workers and reduce demands on government-funded health insurance and care. Using CPS ASEC data from 1996 to 2014, data on city living wage levels, and a triple-difference design, this study presents the first cross-city analysis of the effect of living wages and health insurance “subsidies” on sources of health insurance for low-wage workers. The share of low-wage workers reporting that they receive health insurance from their own employer increases 0.40 percentage points with a 10 percent increase in the living wage (an elasticity of 0.14). More than half of the decline in noninsurance in subsidy cities is driven by increases in own employer-provided health insurance. I find evidence suggesting that increases in enrollment are driven by expansion of existing health insurance benefit programs, consistent with prior single-city studies of living wage ordinances and employer-provided health insurance.
"Do Higher Tipped Minimum Wages Reduce Race, Ethnic, or Gender Earnings Gaps for Restaurant Workers?" (with David Neumark), Industrial Relations, 2025, 1-24.
"Flying Blind on Job Creation Policies? A Case Study of California" (with David Neumark), Economic Development Quarterly, 2024, 38(3), 141-163.
"Policies for Creating and Keeping Jobs in California" (with David Neumark), Public Policy Institute of California, 2023
“How Do Minimum Wage Increases Cause Employers to Alter Health Insurance Offerings? Evidence from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey – Insurance Component”
Abstract: Benefits available to employees vary across employers, generating differences in access and use. Low-wage workers in particular are less likely to receive health insurance from their employer, and employers tend to roll back benefits as minimum wages rise (Meiselbach and Abraham, 2023; Marks, 2011). Offers of health insurance also vary significantly across firm and establishment characteristics, including firm size, workforce sex, workforce age, and union presence (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 2024; Abraham et al., 2016). This study aims to identify the effects of minimum wage increases on employer-provided benefits using restricted-use data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Insurance Component (MEPS IC). I use a multi-way fixed effects approach, exploiting state legislation variation, to identify changes in the rates of employers offering health insurance and employer and employee characteristics associated with changes in health insurance offerings (such as firm size, union status, and part-time status). I find that controlling for establishment characteristics moderates estimates of minimum wage effects on health insurance offers, and that establishments alter health insurance offerings in response to the minimum wage differently based on workforce gender, age, and part-time composition, as well as union presence.“State Paid Family Leave Program Generosity on Women’s Leave-Taking and Employment”
Abstract: Since 2004, 14 US states have introduced or enacted paid leave programs which offer time off for family and medical care needs. Evidence exists of positive effects of some of these programs on parents’ leave-taking and child health outcomes. However, newer programs have only limited evidence and the magnitude of effects of program replacement rates on relevant outcomes are not established. State policies increasingly offer a range of leave benefits, and policymakers may wonder how new parents’ choice of leave-taking and employment will respond to the presence and characteristics of a paid family leave program. This paper first conducts a difference-in-differences analysis using CPS monthly data of paid leave programs in California, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New York to identify if the presence of paid leave programs has an effect on specified outcomes. Then, I focus on California and consider differences in effects over periods where the replacement rate changes. Finally, this paper uses CPS ASEC data and a quasi-IV approach, following Gruber (1997), to measure effects of program benefit characteristics. A 10 percentage point increase in paid parental leave program generosity is associated with an approximately 0.5 percentage point (3 percent) increase in leave-taking.“Why Don’t Higher Minimum Wages Reduce Poverty? Evidence on Effects on Low-Wage Workers Throughout the Family Income Distribution” (with David Neumark)