Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/230394 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2020-16
Publisher: 
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Abstract: 
This paper uses minimum wage hikes to evaluate the susceptibility of low-wage employment to technological substitution. We find that automation is accelerating and supplanting a broader set of low-wage routine jobs in the decade since the Financial Crisis. Simultaneously, low-wage interpersonal jobs are increasing and offsetting routine job loss. However, interpersonal job growth does not appear to be enough - as it was previous to the Financial Crisis - to fully offset the negative effects of automation on low-wage routine jobs. Employment losses are most evident among minority workers who experience outsized losses at routine-intensive jobs and smaller gains at interpersonal jobs.
Subjects: 
Low-wage automation
routine-biased technical change
minimum wage
JEL: 
J15
J21
J24
J38
O33
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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