Somashekhar Mahesh, Buszkiewicz James, Allard Scott W, Romich Jennifer
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Econ Dev Q. 2022 May;36(2):108-123. doi: 10.1177/08912424221089918. Epub 2022 Apr 11.
Minimum wage opponents often argue that businesses owned by marginalized communities, which include woman-owned, Black-owned, and immigrant-owned businesses, are exceptionally vulnerable to minimum wage increases. Little research has investigated this claim. Using a unique survey of Seattle businesses that includes owners' nativity status and was administered while the city began to phase in its $15 minimum wage ordinance, the authors find that immigrant-owned businesses respond to the higher minimum wage in ways that largely conform to the responses of other businesses. Nevertheless, immigrant-owned are less likely than other franchises to fire employees, reduce employees' hours, or lower the wages of employees earning more than $15 per hour. Evidence suggests that immigrant franchisees have a lower likelihood of passing the increased labor costs onto employees because they use fewer employees and rely more heavily on family labor compared to other franchisees. The authors' findings suggest that firms owned by marginalized and nonmarginalized groups respond to municipal-level minimum wage increases in comparable ways. Nevertheless, marginalized status may matter more in certain sectors of the economy than in others.
反对最低工资的人常常认为，包括女性所有、黑人所有和移民所有的企业在内的边缘化社区所拥有的企业，特别容易受到最低工资上涨的影响。很少有研究调查过这一说法。作者利用对西雅图企业进行的一项独特调查，该调查包括企业主的出生地信息，且是在该市开始逐步实施其15美元最低工资条例时进行的，发现移民所有的企业对较高最低工资的反应在很大程度上与其他企业的反应一致。然而，与其他特许经营企业相比，移民所有的企业解雇员工、减少员工工时或降低每小时收入超过15美元的员工工资的可能性较小。有证据表明，移民特许经营商将增加的劳动力成本转嫁给员工的可能性较低，因为与其他特许经营商相比，他们使用的员工较少，且更依赖家庭劳动力。作者的研究结果表明，边缘化和非边缘化群体所有的公司对市级最低工资上涨的反应方式类似。然而，在经济的某些部门，边缘化地位可能比其他部门更重要。
