Economists are sharply divided on whether the direct effect of minimum wage laws on wage levels is offset, in whole or in part, by their indirect negative effects on low-wage employment opportunities. The raft of new state and local initiatives may soon help settle that argument, but in the meantime, a reasonable view is that there has probably been some effect on inequality at the lower end of the income distribution, though not at the top end, where the most massive inequalities have been concentrated in recent years.116
