Conservative Party (UK) others. Until 1999, Conservatives opposed the creation of a national minimum wage, as they believed it would cost jobs, and businesses would be reluctant to start business in the UK from fear of high labour costs. However the party have since pledged support and in the July 2015 budget, Chancellor George Osborne announced a national living wage of £9/hour, to be introduced by 2020, for those aged 25 and over. The National Minimum Wage in 2012 was £6.19 for over-21 year olds, so the proposed rises in National Living Wage by 2020 will represent a significantly higher pay for many.
Minimum wage in the United States in the 1990s which challenged the neoclassical model. In 1994, economists David Card and Alan Krueger studied employment trends among 410 restaurants in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania following New Jersey's minimum wage hike (from $4.25 to $5.05) in April 1992. They found "no indication that the rise in the minimum wage reduced employment." In contrast, a 1995 analysis of the evidence by David Neumark found that the increase in New Jersey's minimum wage resulted in a 4.6% decrease in employment. Neumark's study relied on payroll records from a sample of large fast-food restaurant chains, whereas the Card-Krueger study relied