Wage Issues in American Samoa

In American Samoa, the first minimum wage increase raised the wages of about three-quarters of workers at private sector employers. By 2016, the minimum wage increases would affect the wages of close to 95 percent of those employers’ private sector workers. Earnings data show that employment grew from 2006 to 2008, but employment dropped from 2008 to 2009, since the September 2009 closing of one tuna cannery. Cannery officials said that minimum wage increases were a significant contributing factor in the closure of one cannery. Public and private sector officials expressed concern about the significant impact on employment if future minimum wage increases lead the remaining cannery to close or make attracting new industries more difficult. This book examines the wages, employment, employer actions, earnings, and worker views since minimum wage increases began in American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.