Living Wage not all it seems

Welcome news for workers – a pay rise is on the way via the new National Living Wage. Sadly though all is not quite what is seems.

New research from the Resolution Foundation of George Osborne’s budget ploy demonstrates that in no way have the Tories suddenly woken up to the plight of millions struggling on low pay.

Despite the projected slight pay gains from the National Living Wage, many of the lowest paid workers will still be left poorer overall because of steep cuts to their tax credits.

Not only that the NLW of ÂŁ7.20 an hour, which comes into force in April 2016, will only apply to workers over the age of 25.

The research suggests around two and half million men and three and half million women will receive a pay rise, but as the Foundation points out this is because women have a high “concentration among the low paid.”

Millions of workers know all too well that getting by is not getting on. Insecurity remains a frightening spectre in the workplace – think of the Welfare Bill and the fact that the use of foodbanks remains highest among those actually in work.

There is also the Cameron/Osborne austerity agenda, a mainstay of the Tory election manifesto. Those much promised cuts will do nothing other than put jobs and wages in jeopardy across the public sector.

The burning question posed by many remains: with the public sector facing vast cuts how will they, as one of the largest low pay employers, implement Osborne’s new wages scale?

Working poor pain

 

As the Resolution Foundation made clear in the wake of the Budget: “by concentrating £12bn of cuts from a limited range of working age benefits, the Chancellor has focussed a disproportionate part of that pain on the working poor.

“We shouldn’t think that a higher minimum wage will compensate all low income working families for their losses – many working households will be left significantly worse off.”

 

Not Living Wage

As Unite researcher, Sian Errington, pointed out – “Unite has been calling for a hike in the national minimum wage for over two years. What George Osborne has come up with simply can’t be seen in any reasonable terms as a Living Wage.

“It only introduces another age band to the national minimum wage, and Unite has been calling for an end to the age discrimination that currently exists here.

 

Gain Nothing

“The only people who gain from this are over 25 years old, so if you are a young family, with a child and under 25, you gain nothing, but lose benefits without any increase in wages. For Unite the fight goes on.”

Unite would like to hear from members as we prepare to submit evident to the Low Pay Commission in the level of the national living wage. You can get in touch via Twitter @unitetheunion Facebook – unitetheunion1 and on the web: www.unitetheunion.org