Probably useful to add that much of this is not new for Jobseeker's Allowance claimants being required to take any minimum wage job - and that part of the impact of Tax Credits might have been to encourage employers to offer more low-wage jobs in the knowledge that pay was being topped up by Tax Credits.
Minimum wage therefore being the fence preventing all the other pressures (benefits system, income supplementation) driving wages down even further.
We'll see what happens when the next Minimum Wage report comes out...
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Paul Bivand
Head of Analysis and Statistics
Direct Line: 020 7840 8335
Inclusion website: http://www.cesi.org.uk/
>-----Original Message-----
>Subject: Re: "Benefits reform"
>Ted's assessment is perfectly reasonable, but notice that it is in essence a restatement in less euphemistic language of IDS's points.
>An even less euphemistic version is that the "reforms" have the aim, and would have the effect, of driving down UK workers' standards, at the bottom of the labour market at >least, to those currently obtaining in the central European "new accession" states.
>Julian
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