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Welfare-to-Work, Wages and Wage Growth

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Author Info
Lydon, Reamonn (Frontier Economics)
Walker, Ian () (University of Warwick, IFS and IZA Bonn)

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Abstract

This paper attempts to uncover the effects of a welfare-to-work programme that acts as a wage subsidy on wage growth by exploiting an expansion to this welfare programme in the UK. The conventional wisdom is that such programmes trap recipients into low wage, low quality work – this comes from the simple argument that the “poverty trap”, which a wage subsidy for low income workers induces, reduces the benefits to on-the-job training and so reduces wage growth. In fact, a wage subsidy will also reduce the costs of general training because we would normally expect workers to pay for their own general training in the form of lower gross wages. So a wage subsidy is a way of sharing these costs with the taxpayer. Thus, the net effect on wage progression depends on whether it reduces costs by more or less than it reduces the benefits. The paper uses Labour Force Survey panel data to look at wage levels and growth in the UK before and after Working Families’ Tax Credit (WFTC) replaced Family Credit (FC). We exploit nonlinearities in the system and overall, we find that wage growth for those on WFTC exceeded wage growth for those on FC, although for those already on the programme wage growth declined, reflecting the fact that under WFTC the wage growth is implicitly taxed over a wider range of wages.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 1144.

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Length: 38 pages
Date of creation: May 2004
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1144

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Related research
Keywords: wage growth; welfare-to-work;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
J30 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - General
I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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    Other versions:
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    Other versions:
  11. Charles F. Manski & John V. Pepper, 2000. "Monotone Instrumental Variables, with an Application to the Returns to Schooling," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(4), pages 997-1012, July.
    Other versions:
  12. McCue, Kristin, 1996. "Promotions and Wage Growth," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 14(2), pages 175-209, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  13. Gruber, Jonathan, 1997. "The Incidence of Payroll Taxation: Evidence from Chile," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 15(3), pages S72-101, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  14. Widerstedt, Barbro, 1998. "Moving or Staying? Job Mobility as a Sorting Process," UmeÃ¥ Economic Studies 464, Umeå University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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    Other versions:
  23. Skinner, Chris, et al, 2002. " The Measurement of Low Pay in the UK Labour Force Survey," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 64(0), pages 653-76, Supplemen. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  24. Andrew Leigh, 2005. "Who Benefits from the Earned Income Tax Credit? Incidence Among Recipients, Coworkers and Firms," CEPR Discussion Papers 494, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. [Downloadable!]
  25. Mike Brewer, 2001. "Comparing in-work benefits and the reward to work for families with children in the US and the UK," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 22(1), pages 41-77, January. [Downloadable!]
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Ghazala Azmat, 2006. "The Incidence of an Earned Income Tax Credit: Evaluating the Impact on Wages in the UK," CEP Discussion Papers dp0724, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  2. Luc Godbout & Matthieu Arseneau, 2005. "La prime au travail du Québec :
    Un véritable outil d’incitation au travail ou une simple façon de baisser l’impôt?    ," CIRANO Working Papers 2005s-01, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
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