abstract: 'The earnings difference between white and black workers fell

  dramatically in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

  This article shows that the expansion of the minimum wage played a

  critical role in this decline. The 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act

  extended federal minimum wage coverage to agriculture, restaurants,

  nursing homes, and other services that were previously uncovered and

  where nearly a third of black workers were employed. We digitize over

  1,000 hourly wage distributions from Bureau of Labor Statistics industry

  wage reports and use CPS microdata to investigate the effects of this

  reform on wages, employment, and racial inequality. Using a

  cross-industry difference-in-differences design, we show that earnings

  rose sharply for workers in the newly covered industries. The impact was

  nearly twice as large for black workers as for white workers. Within

  treated industries, the racial gap adjusted for observables fell from 25

  log points prereform to 0 afterward. We can rule out significant

  disemployment effects for black workers. Using a bunching design, we

  find no aggregate effect of the reform on employment. The 1967 extension

  of the minimum wage can explain more than 20\% of the reduction in the

  racial earnings and income gap during the civil rights era. Our findings

  shed new light on the dynamics of labor market inequality in the United

  States and suggest that minimum wage policy can play a critical role in

  reducing racial economic disparities.'
affiliation: 'Derenoncourt, E (Corresponding Author), Univ Calif Berkeley, Berkeley,
  CA 94720 USA.

  Derenoncourt, Ellora; Montialoux, Claire, Univ Calif Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720
  USA.'
author: Derenoncourt, Ellora and Montialoux, Claire
author_list:
- family: Derenoncourt
  given: Ellora
- family: Montialoux
  given: Claire
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1093/qje/qjaa031
eissn: 1531-4650
files: []
issn: 0033-5533
journal: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
keywords-plus: 'LABOR STANDARDS ACT; ECONOMIC-STATUS; MARKET; IMPACT; EARNINGS; GENDER;

  TRENDS; POLICY'
language: English
month: FEB
number: '1'
number-of-cited-references: '72'
pages: 169-228
papis_id: ebf0423b2c49aa10a266112c404f29e8
ref: Derenoncourt2021minimumwages
times-cited: '33'
title: MINIMUM WAGES AND RACIAL INEQUALITY
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000612198000004
usage-count-last-180-days: '12'
usage-count-since-2013: '69'
volume: '136'
web-of-science-categories: Economics
year: '2021'