"The UK uses two major surveys to produce low pay estimates; the official ASHE measure and supplementary LFS measure. The differences between these measures have been accepted as a consequence of the different survey methods and purposes. This article describes three related investigations into these differences. The first shows how the timing of measurement is important and suggests evidence of non-compliance. The second examines the perceived inaccuracy of responses in household surveys and how this affects LFS low pay estimates. The third shows that the measure of hourly rate used can explain much of the difference between the estimates. This work supports the current methods for generating low pay estimates and highlights the need for an awareness of these background issues when interpreting the estimates. "

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