Jared Bernstein is Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economist and economic policy adviser. Before taking that post, Bernstein was director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. He is the author of All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy.

Read a Jan. 15, 2006, New York Times Magazine story about living wage legislation.

Read a May 1, 2006, Wall Street Journal story analyzing the politics of minimum-wage campaigns – and the effort by some to portray it as an issue of moral values.

Read a Nov. 8, 2008, New York Times story about how the working poor and young are hit particularly hard by the faltering economy.

Read a June 12, 2009, Wall Street Journal op-ed column arguing that the third increase in the minimum wage should not be carried out because of the high unemployment rate. It’s written by David Neumark, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Read a Feb. 16, 2006, analysis from the Economic Policy Institute of the economic impact of living-wage legislation.

See a Dec. 10, 2008, Brookings Institution report on the impact of living wage laws.

About 3.6 million workers–4.7% of all hourly paid workers in the United States–earned the minimum wage or less in 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The U.S. Department of Labor Web site provides an interactive map with information about minimum-wage laws in each state.