The UK’s minimum wage is the third highest in the European Union, and almost twice the level of the US, according to a new report.
ResearchÂ
conducted by Eurostat,
the European Union’s statistical office, found that the legal minimum monthly pay in the UK in January was £920 (1,361 euro), behind only Luxembourg with £1,060 (1,570 euro) and Ireland with £948 (1,403 euro).
The minimum wage in the US is worth only £456 (676 euro) a month, but is set to rise for the first time in a decade, increasing from £2.60 ($5.15) an hour to £2.94 ($5.85) next month.
Countries that have only joined the EU in the past three years fared the worst, including Bulgaria, where the minimum wage is worth only £62 (92 euro) a month, followed by Romania with £77 (114 euro) and Latvia with £116 (172 euro).
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The research also pointed to the proportion of employees on minimum wages in 2005, with Spain (0.8%), Malta (1.5%), Slovakia (1.7%), and the UK (1.8%) all dipping under 2%, with France having the highest proportion of low-paid workers at 16.8%, followed by Bulgaria (16%), Latvia (12%), Luxembourg (11%) and Lithuania (10.3%).
In the US, 1.3% of employees received the minimum wage.
