中文摘要
20世纪60年代末至70年代初，美国白人工人与黑人工人之间的收入差距大幅缩小。本文表明，最低工资适用范围的扩大在这一差距缩小过程中发挥了关键作用。1966年《公平劳动标准法》将联邦最低工资的适用范围扩大至农业、餐饮业、养老院及其他此前未被覆盖的服务行业，而近三分之一的黑人工人受雇于这些行业。我们将美国劳工统计局行业工资报告中的1,000余份小时工资分布数据数字化，并使用当前人口调查（CPS）微观数据，考察这一改革对工资、就业和种族不平等的影响。采用跨行业双重差分设计，我们发现新纳入覆盖范围行业的工人收入大幅上升。这一影响对黑人工人而言几乎是对白人工人影响的两倍。在处理行业内部，经可观测变量调整后的种族差距从改革前的25个对数点降至改革后的0。我们可以排除改革对黑人工人产生显著就业抑制效应的可能性。采用聚束设计，我们发现该改革对总体就业没有影响。1967年最低工资适用范围的扩大可以解释民权时代种族收入差距与所得差距缩小幅度的20%以上。我们的研究结果为理解美国劳动力市场不平等的动态演变提供了新的视角，并表明最低工资政策能够在缩小种族经济差距方面发挥关键作用。
Abstract
Abstract The earnings difference between white and black workers fell dramatically in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This article shows that the expansion of the minimum wage played a critical role in this decline. The 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act extended federal minimum wage coverage to agriculture, restaurants, nursing homes, and other services that were previously uncovered and where nearly a third of black workers were employed. We digitize over 1,000 hourly wage distributions from Bureau of Labor Statistics industry wage reports and use CPS microdata to investigate the effects of this reform on wages, employment, and racial inequality. Using a cross-industry difference-in-differences design, we show that earnings rose sharply for workers in the newly covered industries. The impact was nearly twice as large for black workers as for white workers. Within treated industries, the racial gap adjusted for observables fell from 25 log points prereform to 0 afterward. We can rule out significant disemployment effects for black workers. Using a bunching design, we find no aggregate effect of the reform on employment. The 1967 extension of the minimum wage can explain more than 20% of the reduction in the racial earnings and income gap during the civil rights era. Our findings shed new light on the dynamics of labor market inequality in the United States and suggest that minimum wage policy can play a critical role in reducing racial economic disparities.