Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/27315 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
DIW Discussion Papers No. 791
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
In view of rising wage inequality and increasing poverty, the introduction of a legal minimum wage has recently become an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of the introduction of a nationwide legal minimum wage of € 7.5 per hour on the basis of a microsimulation model which accounts for the complex interactions between individual wages, the tax-benefit system and net household incomes. Simulation results show that the minimum wage would be rather ineffective in reducing poverty, even if it led to a substantial increase in hourly wages at the bottom of the wage distribution and had no negative employment effects. The ineffectiveness of a minimum wage in Germany is mainly due to the existing system of meanstested income support.
Subjects: 
minimum wage, wage distribution
working poor
poverty reduction
microsimulation
JEL: 
I32
H31
J32
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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