The minimum wage and migration decisions

This paper investigates the local labor supply effects of changes to the minimum wage by examining the response of low-skilled immigrants’ location decisions. Canonical models emphasize the importance of labor mobility when evaluating the employment effects of the minimum wage; yet few studies address this outcome directly. Low-skilled immigrant populations shift toward labor markets with stagnant minimum wages, and this result is robust to a number of alternative interpretations. This mobility provides behavior-based evidence in favor of a non-trivial negative employment effect of the minimum wage. Further, it reduces the estimated demand elasticity using teens; employment losses among native teens are substantially larger in states that have historically attracted few immigrant residents.

That is from a 2014 paper by Brian C. Cadena, and here is Jorge Pérez Pérez:

I find that areas in which the minimum wage increases receive fewer low-wage commuters. A 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduces the inflow of low-wage commuters by about 3 percent.

And here is one bit from a research paper by Terra McKinnish:

Low wage workers responded by commuting out of states that increased their minimum wage.

Via the excellent Jonathan Meer, you don’t hear about this evidence as much as you should.