Paper that steps back from the current annual debate about the appropriate but small rise in the value of the minimum wage to ask a bolder question: are there more radical reforms of the minimum wage that could raise living standards in the years ahead? It discusses what happens in labour markets where the minimum wage is much higher than it is in Britain today. It also asks whether a smarter design could do more to benefit the groups that are most in need of higher wages? And are there ways to ‘project’ the effects of the minimum wage, so that it doesn’t just raise wages at the very bottom, but also of those higher up the distribution?
