Minimum Wages and Employment in France and the United States

In this paper we examine the link between changes in the minimum wage and employment outcomes for men and women in France and the United States. We make use of longitudinal data on employment status and earnings to see how individuals are affected by real increases (in the case of France) or real decreases (in the case of the United States) in the minimum wage conditional on the individual's location in the earnings distribution. We take particular care to distinguish sub-populations that might be affected differently by the minimum wage, focusing, in particular, on low-wage workers and (in the case of France, where the data are available) on the use of employment-promotion contracts that allow the payment of sub-minimum wages.