Low Pay Commission Report. March 2008.
The (British) Low Pay Commission report, “National Minimum Wage”, released roughly ten years after the Labour government enacted a National Minimum Wage law (Britain’s first). Employers warned the measure would harm employment (“fear of job losses…dominated discussion”).
But ten years after passage, the independent Low Wage Commission (a third of its members are representatives of business) found that these fears had been greatly exaggerated. “The Low Wage Commission has been at the forefront of the search for evidence of any damage caused by the minimum wage to the economy or to jobs. So far we have not found any significant effects…” In fact, the number of low wage jobs in the retail, hospitality, social care, security, and leisure sectors have all experienced a “substantial rise” since the introduction of the minimum wage.
