Minimum Wage

(asked on 20th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what proportion of workers are paid less than the statutory minimum wage.


Answered by
Lord Callanan Portrait
Lord Callanan
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
This question was answered on 3rd February 2021

The Government is committed to ensuring employers correctly pay the National Minimum Wage (NMW). We have more than doubled the budget for the NMW enforcement and compliance, rising to £27.5 million for 20/21, up from £13.2 million in 2015/16. In 2019/20, HM Revenue & Customs identified £20.8 million in arrears for over 263,000 workers and issued just under 1,000 penalties totalling £18.5 million to non-compliant employers.

The ONS’ Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) provides our primary estimate of the proportion of workers who are paid below the statutory minimum wage. The Low Pay Commission (LPC) published estimates in their 2020 report, which found that 347,000 workers (or 1.4% of all jobs) were underpaid the relevant minimum wage in April 2020. This excludes individuals who were furloughed, as they would not have been working at that time. The LPC figure follows our 2019 estimate, where underpayment was estimated to be approximately 408,000, equivalent to 1.4% of all jobs.

We will publish further information on minimum wage underpayment in due course, in our annual enforcement report.

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