The Effect of Minimum Wage on Poverty

Abstract

Minimum wage is a topic gaining lots of attention by policymakers in Washington. Additionally, the poverty rate in the U.S. is almost 15% with over 47 million Americans living in poverty. That said, would increasing the minimum wage help to decrease the poverty rate? In this paper, we addressed that topic, developing a regression model looking at minimum wage, education level, labor force participation rate, and the cost of living and their impact on the poverty rate. Our results indicate that there is no statistical significance between minimum wage and poverty rate and our other independent variables were all statistically stronger than minimum wage.