Murgai, Rinku <br/><br/>
Is a guaranteed living wage a good anti-poverty policy? 
Murgai, Rinku 
 - Washington, D.C.  World Bank  2005 
 - 40 p. 
 - Policy Research Working Paper, no. 3640 .
<br/><br/> Includes bibliographical references 
<br/><br/> "Minimum wages are generally thought to be unenforceable in developing rural economies. But there is one solution - a workfare scheme in which the government acts as the employer of last resort. Is this a cost-effective policy against poverty? Using a micro econometric model of the casual labor market in rural India, the authors find that a guaranteed wage rate sufficient for a typical poor family to reach the poverty line would bring the annual poverty rate down from 34 percent to 25 percent at a fiscal cost representing 3-4 percent of GDP when run for the whole year. Confining the scheme to the lean season (three months) would bring the annual poverty rate down to 31 percent at a cost of 1.3 percent of GDP. While the gains from a guaranteed wage rate would be better targeted than a uniform (untargeted) cash transfer, the extra costs of the wage policy imply that it would have less impact on poverty. ""--World Bank web site." 
<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Topical Terms: </label><br/>Poverty-India<br/>Minimum wage - India<br/>Casual labor - India
<br/><br/><label>Dewey Class. No.: </label>339.46