The national minimum wage (NMW) is a polarising issue. A recent Financial Mail article (Features, August 11-17) exemplified this by positioning two NMW research projects — by economists at UCT and Wits — as occupying opposing corners. This is unhelpful. Minimum wages aim to reduce poverty and inequality. To do so,they must raise wages for poor and lower-income households — and do so faster than the wages of middle- and upper-income earners rise.Our collective starting point should be to ask how an NMW can maximise benefits, minimise risks, and support workers and the wider economy.Though there are important differences between the work coming from UCT and Wits (the latter I co-ordinate), there are also areas of consensus. Wits and UCT reach similar conclusions in their review of the international literature. That evidence indicates neither a "jobs bloodbath" nor unbounded economic prosperity as the result of an NMW alone.Regarding employment, the UCT research quotes international re...
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