Found this interesting analysis from 2007 (1). It primarily looks at low wage earners with families which is interesting because abortion bans will increase the number of these workers (2). The conclusion seems to me to push the policy maker in favor of the employer.
We have the worst healthcare system of high-income nations (3). Increase violence due to increase in inequality in education, healthcare, and wealth (4). Inequality driven by political choices (5). A stressful world leading to radicalization (6). We face a future of increased inequality due to advancements in tech (7). A future where a good portion of US will be unlivable (8). This is just some of what choosing the employer over the people has gotten us.
This is the conclusion from the analysis.
A substantial share of jobs in the U.S. economy pays low wages. As this paper shows, almost a quarter of all working adults, age 19 to 62, and about one in six full time, full year workers earn less than $7.73 an hour. In the coming years, several national and international demographic and economic trends are likely to influence the demand for and supply of lower-skilled workers who hold down these low-wage jobs. Many analysts forecast a labor shortage for the United States that will place upward pressure on wages. This prediction is based on demographic trends: the unusually large baby-boom cohort is approaching retirement, and when baby boomers retire, employers will bid up the wages of the remaining workforce.
Yet, several important countervailing trends could offset the anticipated labor shortage and reduce upward pressure on wages. First, whether baby boomers will retire at the same ages and in the same ways as their parents did is not clear. For example, baby boomers may defer retirement to older ages, and they may work part time as they ease into retirement. Second, immigrants, both authorized and unauthorized, represent a growing share of the labor force. Immigrants are an important source of labor in the United States, and increasing immigration may ameliorate any future labor shortage, thereby eliminating upward pressure on wages and potentially even exerting downward pressure on the wages of less-skilled workers. Third, as India, China, and Eastern Europe take up greater roles in the global economy, more work that U.S. workers have done may be offshored. Indeed, globalization may exert downward pressure on the wages of less-skilled workers. Finally, technological changes and innovations may allow U.S. employers to use fewer workers to meet their production needs.
These four factors—more work by older Americans, immigration, off-shoring, and technological change—can all offset potential labor shortages due to U.S. population aging. As such, they reduce the prospects for the wages of less-skilled workers to be bid up.
Nevertheless, certain less-skilled jobs cannot be offshored and must be done by U.S. workers.10 These jobs include construction and direct service provision, particularly personal care. Indeed, as the population ages, there is likely to be an increasing demand for less-skilled workers who can help the elderly with their daily activities and provide other elder care and health care services.
Ultimately, policymakers hoping to improve the material well-being of low-wage workers in low-income families, especially those with children, will need to be mindful of the larger macroeconomic context of the labor market. Further, policymakers must decide the extent to which it is better to target workers and their wages (e.g., an increased minimum wage) rather than the incomes of low-income families with children (e.g., increased subsidies for child care), or to make longer-term investments that may benefit both down the road (e.g., expanded job training and apprenticeship programs). And they must balance interventions aimed at workers’ skills on the supply side of the labor market with those aimed at employers’ practices on the demand side.
Sources
1 – Low-Income Workers and Their Employers Characteristics and Challenges https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/46656/411532-Low-Income-Workers-and-Their-Employers.PDF
2 – Socioeconomic Outcomes of Women Who Receive and Women Who Are Denied Wanted Abortions in the United States https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304247
3 – Mirror, Mirror 2021: Reflecting Poorly – Health Care in the U.S. Compared to Other High-Income Countries https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358397629_Mirror_Mirror_2021_Reflecting_Poorly_-_Health_Care_in_the_US_Compared_to_Other_High-Income_Countries
4 – Dynamic linkages between poverty, inequality, crime, and social expenditures in a panel of 16 countries: two-step GMM estimates https://journalofeconomicstructures.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40008-020-00220-6#Sec4
5 – This article includes solutions inequality. Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality – An Overview https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/spp-2021-0017/html?lang=de
6 – From Bad to Worse https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34462919/
7 – Employment 5.0: The work of the future and the future of work https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160791X22002275#bib33
8 – New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/