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  Would abolishing the minimum wage - or placing a moratorium on it temporarily - help? "There's no convincing evidence that it would," says Dr Wadsworth (Economist at LSE). Indeed, when the Institute for Fiscal Studies carried out a detailed study, it concluded that the minimum wage had had no impact on increasing unemployment. One reason - in addition to the loss of benefits from taking a job - is the belief that if wages go any lower than the statutory minimum, people cannot live on the sum offered.
  Dr Wadsworth thinks that the most likely cause of the relatively high rate of youth unemployment isn't that youngsters are work‑shy or have been priced out of the labour market by the minimum wage. It is rather that the older folk already in work have accepted pay freezes, or even pay cuts, in order to stay in their jobs. The effect of that has been that employers have been able to keep on most of their workers, which is why the overall unemployment rate has been lower than expected during the recession.
  But it has also meant they have not hired anyone new. New employees are almost always predominantly young. That's one reason why, explains Dr Wadsworth, the rate of unemployment among the young is now so high. Overall, he maintains it is not the unwillingness of the young to work - it's the reluctance of firms to hire them.

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