MINIMUM WAGES AND SOCIAL WELFARE EXPENDITURES Substitutes or complements?

Are minimum wage policies substitutes for or complements to expenditure oriented social welfare policies? We address this research question from a cross national perspective through the utilization of OECD data. We find that countries with high levels of expenditure on traditional social welfare pol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPolicy studies Vol. 28; no. 2; pp. 163 - 174
Main Authors Waltman, Jerold, Marsh, Christopher
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Taylor & Francis Group 01.06.2007
Taylor & Francis LLC
Subjects
Correlation analysis
Expenditures
GDP
Government spending
Gross Domestic Product
Minimum wage
Studies
Welfare
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Summary:Are minimum wage policies substitutes for or complements to expenditure oriented social welfare policies? We address this research question from a cross national perspective through the utilization of OECD data. We find that countries with high levels of expenditure on traditional social welfare policies are decidedly less likely to have any type of minimum wage policy than lower spending nations. However, we also find that there is a strong correlation between the level of the minimum wage and the percentage of GDP spent on social welfare among countries that have minimum wage policies.
ISSN:0144-2872
1470-1006
DOI:10.1080/01442870701312092