The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
Minimum wage
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12/03/2014
Call to raise minimum wage to £6.94
The government should have a minimum wage target of £6.94 an hour and create a powerful watchdog to help workers escape low pay, according to the conclusions of an inquiry chaired by Sir George Bain, one of the original architects of the UK statutory national minimum wage.
The inquiry's final report was published on the day the coalition government announced the minimum wage would rise by 19p – or 3 per cent – to £6.50 an hour and signalled there would be bigger increases in future years.
Category: Reports -
25/02/2014
Commission calls for 3 per cent minimum wage rise
The Low Pay Commission has recommended a 3 per cent rise in the statutory minimum wage from 1 October 2014, lifting the main adult hourly rate from £6.31 to £6.50. Given the current inflation forecast of 2.3 per cent, this would represent a small real-terms increase – the first such increase for five years.
In a letter to the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, the Commission said the recommended rise would mean the number of jobs covered by the minimum wage would increase by over a third, to one and a quarter million.
Category: News stories -
21/02/2014
Minimum wage policy ‘no longer adequate’
The national minimum wage in the UK is no longer strong enough to tackle the country’s low pay problems, according to a report from the Resolution Foundation think tank.
The report presents the interim findings of a review headed by George Bain, who was originally responsible for overseeing the introduction of the minimum wage in 1998 under the previous Labour government.
Category: Reports -
14/02/2014
Benefits play key role in preventing poverty – TUC
Tax credits and benefits play a crucial role in lifting low-paid workers out of poverty, according to new research published by the TUC.
An analysis by economist Howard Reed for the TUC, based on a range of fictional households, shows that low-paid workers need both decent pay rises and help from tax credits and benefits if they are to make ends meet.
Category: Reports -
16/01/2014
Chancellor wants above-inflation minimum wage rise
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has said he wants to see an above-inflation increase in the minimum wage. In an exclusive interview with the BBC he said that the adult minimum wage, currently £6.31 an hour, would have to increase to £7 an hour by 2015 for its value to return to where it was before the global economic recession.
Osborne said that since coming to power in 2010 the coalition government had: 'rescued the country from the brink of disaster and got us into a position where we can now see the minimum wage going up'. He added: 'I want to make sure we are all in it together, as part of the recovery, which is why I want to see above-inflation increases in the minimum wage, precisely because the British economy can now afford that'.
Category: News stories -
12/12/2013
279,000 jobs ‘pay less than minimum wage’
There were 279,000 jobs in April 2013 that paid less than the national minimum wage, according to new figures released by the Office for National Statistics.
The estimate relates to all jobs held by people aged 16 and over, and is based on data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE).
Category: Reports -
05/11/2013
Labour's living wage plan
Some of the lowest-paid workers could get pay rises under plans drawn up by Labour leader Ed Miliband. If the party wins the next election, Miliband says Labour will offer firms a 12-month tax break in 2016 if they agree to pay the 'living wage'.
Category: News stories -
04/11/2013
Over 5 million paid below living wage
The number of people paid less than a 'living wage' has jumped by more than 400,000 in a year to over 5.2 million, says a report for the international tax and auditing firm KPMG.
The research was based on the Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings for 2012, which included approximately 182,000 returns.
Category: Reports -
26/10/2013
Length of time on minimum wage
As many as 320,000 people have been trapped on the lowest rung of the pay ladder for five years or more, it has been revealed in a new report from the Resolution Foundation think tank.
The report examines the length of time people remain on the minimum wage, and the characteristics of those groups of workers who remain stuck on it for longest. It uses data from the Annual Survey of Household Earnings and New Earnings Survey Panel Dataset.
Category: Reports -
16/09/2013
How to boost the wage share
There has been much debate on the merits of tackling inequality by prioritising ‘pre-distribution` - of attempting to achieve a more equal distribution of the cake before turning to ‘redistribution’ through tax and benefits. Stewart Lansley examines the possible impact of a number of measures on wage levels and the wage share.
Category: Articles
