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The voluminous literature on minimum wages offers little consensus on the extent to which a wage floor impacts employment. We argue that the minimum wage will impact employment over time, through changes in growth rather than an immediate drop in relative employment levels. We show that commonly-used specifications in this literature, especially those that include state-specific time trends, will not accurately capture these effects. Using three separate state panels of administrative employment data, we find that the minimum wage reduces job growth over a period of several years.

Whatever the merits of 1,231 individual waivers issued under ObamaCare, a law implemented largely through waivers and exemptions is not law-like. In such a system, where even hairdressers and tour guides are subjected to arbitrary licensing requirements, all the advantages accrue to established, politically-connected businesses.

U.S. labor costs rose at the slowest pace in at least three decades in the spring, a sign of persistently sluggish wage growth that could weigh on the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise short-term interest rates.

A report out Wednesday by sociologists at the University of Southern California asserts that San Diego’s economic growth will depend mightily on reducing income inequality, racial disparities and other examples of inequity.

The U.S. economy accelerated modestly in the second quarter after a slow start to 2015, but growth this year is still less than last year’s tepid first half and is well below the overall pace of the recovery.

A solid majority of Californians believe that global warming is already having an impact, and nearly two-thirds of residents say it has contributed to the state’s current drought, according to a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

The Wednesday night poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) finds strong support for not only the idea that climate change is linked to the state’s historic drought, but also equally robust support for a handful of legislative ideas to double down on the state’s response.

The WCIRB report says that despite steps to curtail costs, total premiums paid to workers’ compensation insurers hit $16.5 billion in 2014, up from $14.8 billion the year before and 27 percent of all such premiums in the nation. It pointed out, however, that the premium jump reflected not only higher rates being charged by insurers to compensate for rising costs, but increases in the number of Californians on payrolls as the state recovered from recession.

Guarantees that organized workers should be allowed to bargain for a subminimum wage appear to have scant legal justification, some experts said. They are not a universal feature of local wage ordinances, in California or other states. San Diego, the largest California city to raise its minimum wage in recent years before L.A., did not include such an exception.

Thus, whatever happens here – even slashing California’s emissions by three-fourths to 2 tons per capita – won’t have a major, or perhaps even measurable, physical impact. Its effect, if any, would be metaphysical, as the governor clearly hopes.

Racial and economic inequality may be key issues facing America today, but the steps often pushed by progressives, including minority politicians, seem more likely to exacerbate these divisions than repair them. In a broad arc of policies affecting everything from housing to employment, the agenda being adopted serves to stunt upward mobility, self-sufficiency and property ownership.

Far from turning into a nation of gig workers, Americans are becoming slightly less likely to be self-employed, and less prone to hold multiple jobs. Official government data shows around 95% of those who report having jobs are accounted for on the formal payroll of U.S. employers, little changed from a decade ago.

Greed, profligacy, tiny companies with outlandish valuations: it is not hard to detect echoes of the turn of the century, when the dotcom bubble burst spectacularly and America’s economy stumbled as a result. But to see history as about to repeat itself is to miss how deeply things have changed. Today’s technology businesses are selling services and products from which they already generate income, rather than just saying that one day they might. And the group of people doing the investing is much smaller now than it was then. The risks are on fewer shoulders.

Pennsylvania has the highest rate of 51.60 cents per gallon (cpg), and is followed closely by New York (45.99 cpg), Hawaii (45.10 cpg), and California (42.35 cpg). On the other end of the spectrum, Alaska has the lowest rate at 12.25 cpg, but New Jersey (14.50 cpg) and South Carolina (16.75 cpg) aren’t far behind. These rates do not include the additional 18.40 cent federal excise tax.

The enormous, disruptive creativity of Silicon Valley is unlike anything since the genius of the great 19th-century inventors. Its triumph is to be celebrated. But the accumulation of so much wealth so fast comes with risks. The 1990s saw a financial bubble that ended in a spectacular bust. This time the danger is insularity. The geeks live in a bubble that seals off their empire from the world they are doing so much to change.