Lifting Up the Working Poor: Predistribution and Redistribution at the Low End of the Wage Spectrum (LIFT-UP)

Minimum wages and taxes and transfers are the primary policy tools to boost incomes for the working poor. However, despite their pervasive adoption and extensive research on them, we still face important unanswered questions. Is having a minimum wage at all justified when governments can redistribute with taxes? If so, what is the appropriate level of the minimum wage to lift incomes without hurting employment? And what policy mix is more socially and politically acceptable to support the working poor? LIFT-UP aims at breaking new ground in our understanding of how to best design core in-work antipoverty tools, examining both their economic and distributional implications and their political and social feasibility.