The Parameters of a National Minimum Hourly Wage

Philippe Askenazy

No 85, IZA Policy Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Both academic and political debates over the minimum wage generally focus on the minimum wage rate. However, the minimum wage is a complex institution composed of a wide variety of parameters. In this note, I show that nominal rates provide a very crude picture of minimal compensation and of actual employer cost by the comparison of the French, British and US Federal national minimum hourly wages. The extent of their coverage, enforcement procedures, and how the "wage" is defined differ widely between countries. Taking these parameters into account can even alter the comparative hierarchy based on nominal rates alone.

Keywords: minimum wage; exemptions; deductions; international comparisons (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J3 J8 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2014-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/pp85.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Parameters of a National Minimum Hourly Wage (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izapps:pp85

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
library@iza.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Policy Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte (hinte@iza.org).