IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/2452.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Where the minimum wage bites hard: the introduction of the UK national minimum wage to a low wage sector

Author

Listed:
  • Machin, Stephen
  • Manning, Alan
  • Rahman, Lupin

Abstract

Between 1993 and April 1999 there was no minimum wage in the United Kingdom (except in agriculture). In this paper we study the effects of the introduction of a National Minimum Wage (NMW) in April 1999 on one heavily affected sector, the residential care homes industry. This sector contains a large number of low paid workers and as such can be viewed as being very vulnerable to minimum wage legislation. We look at the impact on both wages and employment. Our results suggest that the minimum wage raised the wages of a large number of care home workers, causing a very big wage compression of the lower end of the wage distribution, thereby strongly reducing wage inequality. There is some evidence of employment and hours reductions after the minimum wage introduction, though the estimated effects are not that sizable given how heavily the wage structure was affected

Suggested Citation

  • Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan & Rahman, Lupin, 2003. "Where the minimum wage bites hard: the introduction of the UK national minimum wage to a low wage sector," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2452, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:2452
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2452/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lawrence Katz & Alan Krueger, 1992. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on the Fast Food Industry," Working Papers 678, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    2. Richard Dickens & Alan Manning, 1995. "After Wages Councils," New Economy, Institute for Public Policy Research, vol. 2(4), pages 223-227, December.
    3. Metcalf, David, 1999. "The Low Pay Commission and the National Minimum Wage," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(453), pages 46-66, February.
    4. Stephen Machin & Alan Manning, 2002. "The Structure of Wages in What Should be a Competitive Labour Market," CEP Discussion Papers dp0532, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    5. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    6. Charles Brown & Curtis Gilroy & Andrew Kohen, 1982. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 0846, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2101-2163 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1992. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on the Fast-Food Industry," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 6-21, October.
    9. Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan & Rahman, Lupin, 2002. "Where the minimum wage bites hard: the introduction of the UK national minimum wage to a low wage sector," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 20070, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Richard Dickens & Alan Manning, 2004. "Has the national minimum wage reduced UK wage inequality?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 167(4), pages 613-626, November.
    11. Brown, Charles, 1999. "Minimum wages, employment, and the distribution of income," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 32, pages 2101-2163, Elsevier.
    12. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(1), pages 22-37, October.
    13. Brown, Charles & Gilroy, Curtis & Kohen, Andrew, 1982. "The Effect of the Minimum Wage on Employment and Unemployment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 487-528, June.
    14. Stephen Machin & Alan Manning & S Woodland, 1993. "Are Workers Paid their Marginal Product? Evidence from a Low Wage Labour Market," CEP Discussion Papers dp0158, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Alida Castillo Freeman & Richard B. Freeman, 1991. "Minimum Wages in Puerto Rico: Textbook Case of a Wage Floor?," NBER Working Papers 3759, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Sue Fernie & Helen Gray, 2002. "Its a Family Affair: the Effect of Union Recognition and Human Resource Management on the Provision of Equal Opportunities in the UK," CEP Discussion Papers dp0525, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    17. Dickens, Richard & Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 1999. "The Effects of Minimum Wages on Employment: Theory and Evidence from Britain," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(1), pages 1-22, January.
    18. David Card, 1992. "Using Regional Variation in Wages to Measure the Effects of the Federal Minimum Wage," Working Papers 680, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    19. Richard Dickens & Stephen Machin & Alan Manning, 1994. "The Effects of Minimum Wages on Employment: Theory and Evidence from the US," NBER Working Papers 4742, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. repec:fth:prinin:300 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1993. "Labor Demand and the Source of Adjustment Costs," NBER Working Papers 4394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Burkhauser, Richard V & Couch, Kenneth A & Wittenburg, David C, 2000. "A Reassessment of the New Economics of the Minimum Wage Literature with Monthly Data from the Current Population Survey," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(4), pages 653-680, October.
    23. repec:fth:prinin:298 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arindrajit Dube & Attila Lindner, 2024. "Minimum Wages in the 21st Century," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2524, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
    2. János Köllö, 2010. "Hungary: The Consequences of Doubling the Minimum Wage," Chapters, in: Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead (ed.), The Minimum Wage Revisited in the Enlarged EU, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Zsófia L. Bárány, 2016. "The Minimum Wage and Inequality: The Effects of Education and Technology," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 237-274.
    4. Holmlund, Bertil, 2014. "What do labor market institutions do?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 62-69.
    5. Ahmad Jafari Samimi, 2011. "Minimum Wage and Youth Employment The Case Study of Iran's Manufacturing Industries," Journal of Education and Vocational Research, AMH International, vol. 1(2), pages 38-43.
    6. David Neumark & William Wascher, 2006. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Review of Evidence from the New Minimum Wage Research," NBER Working Papers 12663, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Carla Canelas, 2014. "Minimum Wage and Informality in Ecuador," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-006, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    8. Larsen, Andrew Mikael, 2004. "Effects of a minimum wage increase on the employment of disabled persons," ISU General Staff Papers 2004010108000017651, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    9. Deltas, George, 2007. "Can a minimum wage increase employment and reduce prices in a neoclassical perfect information economy?," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 657-674, August.
    10. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2014-006 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Lemos, Sara, 2004. "A Menu of Minimum Wage Variables for Evaluating Wages and Employment Effects: Evidence from Brazil," IZA Discussion Papers 1069, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Mirko Draca & Stephen Machin & John Van Reenen, 2011. "Minimum Wages and Firm Profitability," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 129-151, January.
    13. David Neumark & Peter Shirley, 2022. "Myth or measurement: What does the new minimum wage research say about minimum wages and job loss in the United States?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 384-417, October.
    14. Daniel Aaronson & Eric French, 2007. "Product Market Evidence on the Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 167-200.
    15. Dolton, Peter & Bondibene, Chiara Rosazza & Stops, Michael, 2015. "Identifying the employment effect of invoking and changing the minimum wage: A spatial analysis of the UK," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 54-76.
    16. John Schmitt, 2015. "Explaining the Small Employment Effects of the Minimum Wage in the United States," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 547-581, October.
    17. Pereira, Sonia C., 2003. "The impact of minimum wages on youth employment in Portugal," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 229-244, April.
    18. Peter Dolton, 2012. "The administration and impact of a national minimum wage: lessons for Germany," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 45(3), pages 201-208, December.
    19. Dickens, Richard & Machin, Stephen & Manning, Alan, 1998. "Estimating the effect of minimum wages on employment from the distribution of wages: A critical view," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 109-134, June.
    20. Lemos Sara, 2005. "Political Variables as Instruments for the Minimum Wage," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, December.
    21. Neumark David, 2019. "The Econometrics and Economics of the Employment Effects of Minimum Wages: Getting from Known Unknowns to Known Knowns," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(3), pages 293-329, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
    • J4 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets
    • J8 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:2452. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.