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  • December 30, 2015

Why Raising The Minimum Wage Probably Won't Fix Income Inequality

Fast food workers rally in New York City, December 5, 2013.

Andy Katz/Bigstock

The Huffington Post covered a paper appearing in this month's issue of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. In The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to US Wage Inequality over Three Decades: A Reassessment, the authors use updated data and a new methodological approach to study the link between wage inequality and the minimum wage. They find that a higher real minimum wage can reduce inequality, but that the effect is "substantially less" powerful than previously thought.