An Economic Analysis of the Nashville Living Wage Proposals

Robert Pollin and Jeannette Wicks-Lim consider the economic impact of two living wage proposals for Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee. Pollin and Wicks-Lim look at the overall costs of each proposal, which offer a wage of $10.80 per hour and health insurance benefits to two alternative pools of workers, and break those costs into direct wage costs, health insurance costs, and ripple-effect costs. They place these expenses in context as a share of the local government budget, and consider a range of potential revenue sources to cover them. The authors then discuss the benefits that the living wage proposals would bring, not only to the workers, but to state and local governments, businesses, and low-income communities in general.