BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D <Richardson_D@xxxxxxx>]

BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1997

Revisiting their own controversial research, a pair of prominent
economists concluded that better data support their original assertion:
Raising the minimum wage moderately doesn't cost jobs.  In the new work,
David Card of the University of California at Berkeley and Alan Krueger
of Princeton University used reports filed by employers and collated by
BLS.  Their earlier work ... relied on a telephone survey of employers
that their critics attacked.  With the new data, the economists looked
at fast-food employment in New Jersey and Pennsylvania at two key points
.....The new Card-Krueger work, to be published shortly as a working
paper by Princeton, hasn't been widely circulated yet among their
critics ....Despite assertions from employer groups and many mainstream
economists that lifting the minimum wage would reduce the number of jobs
available to young and unskilled workers and increase unemployment,  the
recent strength of the economy has pushed the jobless rate down.
Retailers and other employers of low-wage workers are complaining more
about labor shortages than wage increases ....(Wall Street Journal, page
A2).

Headhunters Management Recruiters International Inc. says 56 percent of
4,300 firms queried plan to add professional staff in the next six
months, the most in the survey's 16-year history (Wall Street Journal,
"Work Week," page A1).

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