Tuesday 7 October 2008

Negative wages

via Stumbling and Mumbling by Chris Dillow on 25 September

What's the lowest wage you can legally get in the UK? This is a no-brainer. It's the National Minimum Wage.

Read the full article and discover that Chris uses data to show how someone moving off benefits into a low-paid job can actually lose money. He then goes on to imply that this is a negative wage.

Hazel's comment:
Chris, you're wrong to even imply this. It has always (at least since 1948) been possible to get a lower income from working than from staying on benefit – been there, done that, lost that t-shirt from both sides of the benefit counter.

No comments: