“Money's too tight (to mention)”:A review and psychological synthesis of living wage research

Traditional living wage research has been the purview of economists, but recently contributions from the field of work psychology have challenged existing perspectives, providing a different lens through which to consider this issue. By means of a narrative interdisciplinary review of 115 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2020, we chart the transitions in the field with attention shifting from macro-economic and econometric lens largely concerned with the costs of living wage policies, to a more person-centric lens focusing on the employee and their family. Synthesizing prior study, we outline five key themes: consequences for individuals, organizations, and societies; changes in operationalization; exploration of different contexts; study of social movements; and the history of the topic. We outline the importance of work psychology in developing the living wage debate through more inclusive definitions, and novel operationalization and measurement, thereby providing fresh insights into how and why living wages can have a positive impact. Critically, we outline the redundancy of simple study of wage rates without understanding the elements that make work decent. We raise key areas for further study, and this topic presents a significant opportunity for psychology to shift focus to impact upstream policy by providing new empirical evidence, and challenges to structural inequalities

Minimum Wage Channels of Adjustment

Industrial Relations, forthcoming Abstract: The effects of minimum wage increases in 2007-2009 are analyzed using a sample of restaurants from Georgia/Alabama. Store-level payroll records provide precise measures of compliance costs. Examined are multiple adjustment channels. Exploiting variation in compliance costs across restaurants, we find employment and hours responses to be variable and in most cases statistically insignificant. Channels of adjustment to wage increases and to changes in non-labor costs include prices, profits, wage compression, turnover, and performance standards

Intensificação do trabalho e saúde dos trabalhadores: um estudo na Mercedes Benz do Brasil, São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo1

Na sociedade contemporânea, a intensificação do trabalho representa, cada vez mais, um mal-estar, manifesto em problemas de saúde dos trabalhadores. Como problemática da Saúde Coletiva/Saúde do Trabalhador, o objeto "intensificação do trabalho e saúde" pode ser estudado nas práticas específicas de exploração e expropriação do conhecimento técnico e social do trabalhador tendentes a confrontar sua capacidade coletiva, visto que o enfraquecimento da dimensão coletiva está a desencadear múltiplas manifestações de sofrimento e penosidade no trabalho. Neste estudo, analisamos o processo de intensificação do trabalho e saúde a partir da percepção dos trabalhadores da Mercedes Benz do Brasil, em São Bernardo do Campo. Realizamos sete visitas à fábrica e vinte e nove entrevistas: vinte e duas com trabalhadores diretos e sete com representantes sindicais. Os resultados e a discussão são apresentados em três categorias: ritmo de trabalho, prolongamento do trabalho, e administração por estresse. O estudo contribui para o avanço do entendimento da intensificação do trabalho e saúde e, ao mesmo tempo, traz indicações sobre os limites e as possibilidades postos à ação coletiva dos trabalhadores nas atuais condições históricas

Unemployment Benefits as Redistribution Scheme for Trade Gains: A Positive Analysis

Trade liberalization is no Pareto-improvement - there are winners (high-skilled) and losers (low-skilled). To compensate the losers the government is assumed to introduce unemployment benefits (UB). These benefits are financed by either a wage tax, a payroll tax, or a profit tax. Using a Melitz-type model of international trade with unionized labor markets and heterogeneous workers we show that: (i) there is a threshold level of UB where all trade gains are destroyed, (ii) this threshold differs between different kind of taxes, (iii) there is a clearcut ranking in terms of welfare for the chosen funding of the UB: 1. wage tax, 2. profit tax, 3. payroll tax