Press Release

AAF Research Examines Effectiveness of Minimum Wage As An Anti-Poverty Tool

The American Action Forum (@AAF) released new research that examines the minimum wage, its impact on the labor market, and its effectiveness as an anti-poverty tool. The AAF research finds the minimum wage fails to address poverty since it fails to address joblessness.  Increasing the minimum wage to $9 and $10, as has been proposed recently, would fail to assist almost 99 percent of all people in poverty.

The minimum wage is also an ineffective tool to combat income inequality since the vast majority of young adults earning the minimum wage live in families with incomes in the top 20 percent.

In earlier research, AAF examined current proposals to raise the minimum wage to $9 per hour and $10 per hour, finding it would cost 1.4 million and 2.3 million new jobs nationwide respectively.  

Click here to read the research.

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