Last week, we shared some of our research on the minimum wage's impact on labor markets. Anrindrajit Dube, one of our grantees (and co-author of this important study on San Francisco's living wage ordinance), appeared recently on MSNBC's Up With Chris Hayes show to give a broad overview of the conventional economic wisdom on the minimum wage, and why recent empirical evidence (including his own work) has complicated the argument. Watch the clip below (Dube starts to speak around the 4:00 minute mark):

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The American Prospect also published an interview with Dube about the implications of his research:

So if going to a $9 minimum wage is such a good idea, why not go to a $40 minimum wage? Is there ever too much of a good thing? I think for most things the answer is yes. The range of minimum-wage increases we have seen in the United States, the evidence speaks pretty clearly to there not being job losses, and also gains to workers. So what is that range? Let's go back to 1968. In 1968 the minimum wage was around 50 percent of the average production-worker wage. If that were true today, that minimum wage would be around $10 an hour. So from that perspective, raising it to $9 is well within, indeed under, the historical norm between the minimum and average wage of production workers. Another way to think about this is looking at other countries. There are many countries in the developed world that have a minimum wage that is as, or even more, generous than 50 percent of average wages. Another way to think about this is to consider what the purchasing power of the minimum wage. The 1968 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, today would be somewhere between $9.25 and $10.50 depending on what CPI index you use. Again what the Obama administration is proposing is safely below this. We can't say, based on historical evidence in the United States, what a $40 minimum wage would do, but we can say a lot about what a $9 or $10 minimum wage would look like. In addition to a $9 minimum wage, President Obama proposed indexing it so that it goes up with the cost of living. How does that complicate a minimum wage? First of all, nine states already have an indexed cost-of-living increase for the minimum wage. One thing that I would do is makes wage changes more predictable. At the federal level, we have gone through extended periods when the nominal minimum wage has been stagnant, then there's a big fight about it followed by a sizable increase, and then it stays there for a while. I don’t know of any economic model which says this is a good way to go. This creates uncertainty about the timing and extent of the wage increases, and it generally not a great way of setting the minimum wage, no matter what level you think it should be. We could disagree about the level of the minimum wage, but it seems like a no-brainer to me that no matter what level we pick, we should have a relatively smooth adjustment process. A natural adjustment process is tying the rate of cost of living increases, like many items including Social Security payments. It makes a lot of sense. Daniel Hammermesh—a well-known labor economist who in general is not in favor of high minimum wages—has nonetheless come out supporting indexation.