the UK’s minimum wage turns fifteen this year.
As the chair of the Low Pay Commission that
set the first rate, I did not think it would survive
this long. In 1999 when the minimum wage became
law, the business community was roundly opposed,
opponents predicted two million unemployed, and the
House of Commons was divided. We felt engaged in an
embattled experiment.
Today’s context could hardly be more different. The minimum wage enjoys
broad political support and the academic consensus shows clearly that it
boosted earnings without causing unemployment. Low pay itself has changed
too. When we started our work fifteen years ago, I remember seeing jobs
advertised paying £1 an hour. Such extremes are now all but eliminated. Yet
the more general problem of low pay remains. Five million workers in the UK
are low paid – one in five of the total workforce, a figure that has barely dipped
in the last decade and a half.