Who Gets Minimum Wages?

There have been rising levels of inequality in the earnings distribution in some OECD countries (principally the English-speaking ones) together with stubbornly higher levels of unemployment in many others. Australia has shared in the rise in earnings inequality, but not to the degree that the US, Canada and the UK have. It has also shared in the rise in persistent unemployment, butnot to the degree that many continental European countries have. This situation provides the background as to why there is a current interest in the association between earning a low wage and living in a low income household.