Impact of the national minimum wage on disabled people

The survey reported here found disparities in the impact of the introductio n of the National Minimum Wage on disabled people. These were associated wi th age, gender, impairment and type of employment setting. The main determi nant of whether individuals gained from the NMW was their status as claiman ts of welfare benefits. We also found evidence that paid hours had been red uced to implement the NMW with no net increase in earnings, possibly to ena ble people to retain benefits entitlements. We make recommendations about h ow the anomalies can be tackled. It may be unrealistic to expect the Act to have been implemented fully so soon after it became law and some of the an omalies found may eventually disappear. However, many of the inequalities u ncovered by this survey are not addressed by the NMW, specifically those in equalities associated with impairment and gender.