Mind the Gap: Net Incomes of Minimum Wage Workers in the EU and the US

Relative income poverty affects 5 to 15 per cent or more of Europeans whose main activity is paid work. It also affects their families; the majority of children growing up in financial poverty live in a household with at least one earner (Van Mechelen and Bradshaw, in this volume). A long-standing issue in the United States, concern about in-work poverty is now also mounting in Europe. The past few years have seen a rapid rise in the number of academic publications dealing with in-work poverty within the European context (Marx and Verbist, 1998; Nolan and Marx, 2000; Andreß and Lohmann, 2008; Lohmann, 2009; Crettaz, 2011; Fraser, Gutiérrez and Peña-Casas, 2011; Maitre, Nolan and Whelan, 2011; Kenworthy, 2011; Marx and Nolan, 2012; Van Lancker, 2012).1 Some see far reaching societal implications (Standing, 2011). At the policy level, too, a growing awareness is evident. In its 2011 report on Employment and Social Developments in Europe 2011, the European Commission states: ‘Although it is clear that, while employment is the most important factor in preventing poverty, it is also true that the phenomenon of monetary in-work poverty is nonetheless all too real.’