How Labor Activism Raises Wages

• In Event: Organizational Drivers of Economic Inequality (Co-sponsored by Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility Section)

Abstract

Researchers have long suggested that wage norms and social movement pressure can affect macro-level labor market inequality. We study these issues with the Fight for \$15 movement, a union-funded advocacy campaign against low wages. Cities with Fight for \$15 campaigns had more wage growth at the bottom following the campaigns, even when instrumenting with internal union political cleavages. This wage growth is accounted for by state and local statutory minimum wage increases. In a series of supplementary analyses, we find no evidence that FF15 cities saw larger shifts in worker expectations or employer practices over and above the statutory minimum increases. The analysis demonstrates that labor activism can succeed at changing the wage structure through policy change, even without localized norm shifts.

Author

• Nathan Wilmers, Massachusetts Institute of Technology