Minimum wages were set by industry in the United Kingdom up until 1993. The wage councils were abolished in 1993, except for the Agriculture Wages Board which continues to this day. Outside of agriculture, the UK did not have a minimum wage between 1993 and 1999. From 1999 on, the National Minimum Wage was in effect in the UK, as recommended by the UK Low Pay Commission, established in 1997 by the newly elected Labour government. Notice that the trend in employment visually appears unaffected by the introduction of the national minimum wage and subsequent increases in it. The trend appears the same before as afterwards. This seems like disconfirmatory evidence to me of the simple neoclassical model of wages and employment as determined by supply and demand functions. Some of us know that model is without theoretical foundation anyways.
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Hat tip to Bill Mitchell
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