UK – Employees aged 21 in 1995 earned 40% more after adjusting for inflation by the age of 39 than those aged 21 in 1975 did up to the age of 39

The report UK Wages Over the Past Four Decades – 2014 by ONS looks at changes in earnings in the UK over the past forty years. It makes use of distributional and cohort analysis to assess the impact of the recession on real earnings as well as looking at the impact of the introduction of the national minimum wage.

Key Points

• Employees aged 21 in 1995 earned 40% more after adjusting for inflation by the age of 39 than those aged 21 in 1975 did up to the age of 39
• Average hourly earnings peaked at older ages in 2013 compared to 1975
• The difference between male and female average pay for the under 30s has decreased dramatically since 1975.
• Since 2011 the top 10% of full-time earners have had the largest falls in wages after adjusting for inflation.
• Since 1975 average earnings for full-time employees have more than doubled after accounting for inflation.
• Since the introduction of the National Minimum Wage, wage growth at the bottom of the earnings distribution has been strong for both full and part-time employees.
• Almost a third (32.6%) of those in the top 10% of earners worked in London in 2013 while 12.3% of the bottom 10% of earners worked in the North West
• Hourly wage inequality has fallen across the regions and devolved countries of the UK since 1998

via UK Wages Over the Past Four Decades – 2014 – ONS.