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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Torsten Bell

The UK’s world beating minimum wage is not as good as it appears

A bar worker pours a drink.
Low earners can experience sudden changes in shifts and hours and sick pay is poor. Photograph: Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images

Does the UK’s fast-rising minimum wage mean it’s mission accomplished on low pay?

Having surged from £3.60 an hour in 1999 to £10.42 today, our wage floor is now among the highest in the world. Rapid increases since the national living wage’s 2016 introduction have slashed the proportion of “low paid” employees (earning below two-thirds of the typical hourly wage) to 9% (versus 21% in 2015), the lowest in more than 50 years.

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