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LivingWages & Communities: Smarter Economic Development, LowerThan Expected Costs Methodology In order to examine the effects of living wage laws on local governments, we interviewed o�cia�s and administrators from twenty cities and counties that had enacted and implemented living wage laws at the time the study was done. The information in this report was provided by local ofiicials in twenty cities and counties—the entire group of cities and counties that, by late 2001, had both (1) a living wage law that had been in force for at least one year, and (2) the administrative capacity to produce cost impact estimates, formal internal evaluations, or other empirical assessments of the effects of their law�.' In many cases, localities had conducted the necessary analysis to report on the effects of their living wage en just one of the two focus areas—servicecontracts and business subsidies—butnot both. Combining larger cities like San Francisco, CA and San Antonio, TX with medium-sized cities like Oakland, CA and smaller cities like Madison, WI and Warren, MI, the study reflects the experiences of a broad range of communities. In compiling this report, we (1) conducted structured interviews with government administrators and lawmakers; and (2) analyzed studies done by the localities themselves. In all these communities, some sort of centralized authoriry possessed information on the local government's experience with its liv- ing wage law. In some localities, this took the form of an administrator charged with overseeing imple- mentation. In a number of the communities, the locality had conducted a formal review of the law's impact that examined its effects on costs of city contracts or on the operation of city business subsidy programs. We focused our questioning on the living wage laws' effects on the local governments' con- tract costs and city business subsidy programs. In an effort to limit the possible effects of biases by law- makers and administrators—biaseseither in favor of or against the living wage policy—we attempted wherever possible to draw data from several sources, including interviews with different ciry officials and written ciry reports or analyses. While this report does not reveal every aspect of the effects of these laws, the experiences and analyses of local officials with firsthand knowledge offer important insights into the impact of living wage laws.