Affirmative action raises firm labor costs by about five percent

Evidence

Echoing my complaint above, Holzer (1998:43) points out that “we have little strong evidence to date on the efficiency effects of these programs, or on whether they generate any net new employment for less-educated workers.” Firms subject to affirmative action regulations experience an increase of about 5 percent in labor costs compared with firms not so subject, according to the only set of scholars who have studied the issue (Griffin et al., 1996). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2029

Categorization

• QUESTION: The 5% labor-cost figure comes from the only study on the question — a thin evidence base worth probing.