What Have EU Countries Done to Support Low-Wage Workers in an Era of Downward Wage Pressures?
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IZA DP No. 9390 Stemming the Tide: What Have EU Countries Done to Support Low-Wage Workers in an Era of Downward Wage Pressures? Sarah Marchal Ive Marx September 2015 DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor Stemming the Tide: What Have EU Countries Done to Support Low-Wage Workers in an Era of Downward Wage Pressures? Sarah Marchal Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp Ive Marx Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy, University of Antwerp and IZA Discussion Paper No. 9390 September 2015 IZA P.O. Box 7240 53072 Bonn Germany Phone: +49-228-3894-0 Fax: +49-228-3894-180 E-mail: [email protected] Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. 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IZA Discussion Paper No. 9390 September 2015 ABSTRACT Stemming the Tide: What Have EU Countries Done to Support * Low-Wage Workers in an Era of Downward Wage Pressures? Governments across the EU have been striving to get more people into work while at the same time acknowledging that more needs to be done to ‘make work pay’. Yet this drive comes at a time when structural economic shifts are putting pressure on wages, especially of less skilled workers. This article focuses on trends in minimum wages, income taxes, and work-related benefits within a selection of 16 EU countries, for the period 2001-2012, with three US states included as reference cases. We find evidence for eroding relative minimum wages in various EU countries, yet combined with catch-up growth in the new Member States. We also find that governments counteracted eroding minimum wages through direct income support measures, especially for lone parents. Most prevalent among these were substantial declines in income tax liabilities. More generally we see a trend unfolding towards a fiscalization of income support policies. JEL Classification: I38 Keywords: minimum wage, income support, fiscalization, lone parents Corresponding author: Ive Marx Centre for Social Policy University of Antwerp St Jacobstraat 2 2000 Antwerpen Belgium E-mail: [email protected] * The research for this paper has benefited from financial support by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2012‐2016) under grant agreement n° 290613 (ImPRovE: Poverty Reduction in Europe: Social Policy and Innovation; http://improve‐research.eu). The authors would like to thank Tim Goedemé, Bea Cantillon, Lane Kenworthy, the participants to the Autumn Improve Meeting in Budapest, and the participants to the 22nd FISS international conference in Hong Kong for their comments and suggestions. Sarah Marchal gratefully acknowledges a PhD scholarship from the Research Foundation Flanders. The authors are solely responsible for any remaining shortcomings and errors. Table of contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 5 2 What governments can do to support low‐wage workers ..................................................... 6 3 Hypotheses on recent trends .................................................................................................. 7 4 Data & Method ...................................................................................................................... 10 5 Results ................................................................................................................................... 12 5.1 Minimum wages under pressure? ........................................................................................ 12 5.2 Do minimum wages protect against poverty? ...................................................................... 17 5.3 Additional government support to boost the incomes of minimum wage workers? .......... 18 5.3.1 Overall trends in net income of minimum wage workers ....................................... 18 5.3.2 Is there a trend towards fiscalization? .................................................................... 22 5.3.3 Are working lone parents deemed more deserving? .............................................. 24 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 25 Annex ........................................................................................................................................... 26 References ................................................................................................................................... 28 4 1 Introduction We are living in an era in which intensifying international economic competition and skill‐biased technological change are exerting downward pressures on the wages of workers in rich countries, especially on the wages of relatively low skilled workers. With continuing deindustrialisation, automation and outsourcing, many less skilled workers have come to rely on service sector jobs which cannot be readily outsourced or automated, but where productivity and thus wage gains are also achieved less easily. More workers for relatively fewer jobs may also mean that some people are willing to work for less, potentially driving down wages in that segment, unless minimum wages set a buffer. In addition, there may be increased competition from migrant workers in many countries. Whereas these changes impact on all rich countries, some of them may weigh more heavily within the common market of the European Union. Since the 2004 and 2007 enlargements, workers from the former communist countries of the EU have gradually but altogether rapidly gained free access to the old EU countries, where wages and working conditions tend to be far better than in their home countries, comparatively speaking. This (potential) migration may well be putting considerable pressure on those wages. That pressure need not only come from permanent migrants. Posted workers for example tend to undercut local wages by a wide margin. Yet while wages may be under pressure, especially for the less skilled in the richest countries, in‐work poverty has come front and centre as a policy concern, paradoxically at the same time that ‘a job is the best protection against poverty’ became a central tenet of EU policy (European Commission, 2011). Added to this is an increased concern for child poverty, as a significant number of children in poverty live in families where the full earning potential is already fulfilled, such as lone parent households, or families with low‐educated parents (see e.g. Vandenbroucke & Diris, 2014; Vandenbroucke & Vinck, 2013 for Belgium). With in‐work poverty rates close to ten per cent in the EU (and on the rise) (Eurostat, 2014), policy makers and international organizations proclaim the need to make efforts to increase take‐home pay. Supporting low‐income working households is furthermore necessary to lend credibility to the policy turn towards ‘activation’ and ‘making work pay’ (Weishaupt, 2011). In this paper we assess whether years of growing concern about downward pressure on wages, in‐ work poverty and ‘making work pay’ are actually reflected in increasing policy efforts. We focus on trends in minimum wages, tax relief measures, and benefits in a period of continued European integration and activation reforms. We assess whether we find similar patterns within a selection of 16 EU countries, in the period 2001‐2012. Three US states are included as reference cases, especially because the US is seen as a country where low pay is rife but also where much has been done to support low‐paid workers. More specifically, we ask the questions i) whether increasing pressures on low wages have affected minimum wages, and ii) whether EU countries took measures to stem the tide for working low income families. Moreover, do we find evidence for similar policy instruments, and were similar groups targeted out for support? We focus here on fiscal vs. non‐fiscal policy measures and lone parents vs. breadwinner couples. 5 2 What governments can do to support low‐wage workers Governments have multiple options to support low income working households. Marx et al. (2013) distinguish between direct vs. indirect support (see Table 1), and incremental options (that build on existing arrangements) vs. options that would in most countries require the implementation of entirely new efforts. In this paper, we focus on direct