Low pay and insecurity in the UK labour market

Minimum wage increases have driven down the incidence of low hourly pay, but there has been much less progress elsewhere for low earners. Low pay is widespread among the self-employed, who do not benefit from the minimum wage and whose numbers have increased over the past 20 years. And there are several forms of work insecurity making life difficult for low-paid workers but would be considered totally unacceptable for higher paid workers to experience. Nye Cominetti, Rui Costa, Nikhil Datta and Felicia Odamtten write that a policy agenda for low-paid workers in the 2020s should seek to address these problems.