{"id":2280,"date":"2014-11-21T12:07:30","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T12:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=2280"},"modified":"2014-11-21T12:10:32","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T12:10:32","slug":"victorian-era-pay-drop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=2280","title":{"rendered":"Victorian era pay drop"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UK workers will have suffered a sixth year in a row of a brutal real-terms pay drop in 2014, making it the longest period of wage decreases since the Victorian era.<\/p>\n

 
\nWhile Conservatives dream up a supposed \u00e2\u20ac\u015beconomic recovery,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 hoping their best before the general election that they can fool the electorate into thinking everything\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay, millions of workers know better.<\/p>\n

 
\nRecord lows<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nAccording to the latest ONS figures<\/a>, average wages grew this year by \u00c2\u01411 a week \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a rise that was completely wiped out by higher prices.<\/p>\n

 
\nAdjusted for inflation, average wages in fact shrunk by 1.6 per cent, which was the greatest earnings fall since records began in 1997.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe top 10 per cent of earners took home, on average, a healthy \u00c2\u014153,000 a year, while the bottom 10 per cent of earners barely scraped by on an average of \u00c2\u014115,000 a year. These meagre earnings amounted to less than \u00c2\u0141288 per week.<\/p>\n

 
\nONS figures further reveal that a shocking 236,000 jobs paid less than the legally mandated national minimum wage.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Government is making history for the longest fall in real earnings since records began \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a time when Queen Victoria was on the throne,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said TUC general secretary Frances O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Grady. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bBritain needs a pay rise to end the decline in living standards and to put the spending money in people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pockets that will keep businesses growing.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nGood news?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nChancellor George Osborne crowed about the new employment statistics showing a fall in the gender pay gap\u00e2\u20ac\u201dperhaps the only thing that can be celebrated in the latest ONS figures.<\/p>\n

 
\nStill, the closing gap was hardly noteworthy\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit fell by a meagre 0.6 percentage points, from 10 per cent in 2013 to 9.4 per cent this year.<\/p>\n

 
\nWhat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more, the small shrink in the gender pay gap could well be an illusory one. Since women typically take on the majority of low-paid jobs, the reduction in median wages in the latest figures is likely coming from more men being funnelled into low-wage work.<\/p>\n

 
\nThis effect would automatically shrink the wage gap, but not because women have made any gains. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because both men and women are doing worse.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNumbers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lie\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nOsborne went on to assert in response to the latest earnings report, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe great recession made our country poorer but the only way to improve living standards is to continue working through the plan that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s delivering a brighter economic future.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The \u00e2\u20ac\u015bplan\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to which Osborne alludes is ever higher doses of austerity.<\/p>\n

 
\nIndeed, just when we thought we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen the worst of the Tory cuts, prime minister David Cameron recently told the public to brace for more<\/a>, extolling the virtues of permanent austerity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bPoliticians may twist the truth, but numbers don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t lie,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said assistant general secretary Steve Turner. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe undeniable fact is that the current leadership has presided over the longest decline in wages in well over a century.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 plan of continued and permanent austerity, which has only made most of the country worse off, is a perfect example of the saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Turner argued that specific, Labour-supported policies are the only way out of the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s austerity-fuelled race to the bottom.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAusterity hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worked in the last five years and it won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work in the next five years,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe only sane thing left to do is elect a Labour government committed to the needs of working people\u00e2\u20ac\u201dby raising the minimum wage and promoting strong trade unions, collective bargaining and a powerful voice for working people, democratising decision-making in the boardroom.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe must address the housing crisis and exploitation of ‘generation rent’ through a programme to build a million social homes, while also forcing cash-flush corporations to pay their fair share in taxes and promoting the creation of skilled, unionised jobs,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Turner added.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK workers will have suffered a sixth year in a row of a brutal real-terms pay drop in 2014, making it the longest period of wage decreases since the Victorian era.   While Conservatives dream up a supposed \u00e2\u20ac\u015beconomic recovery,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 hoping their best before the general election that they can fool the electorate into thinking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[76,136,165],"wps_subtitle":"\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe last time wages fell for this long, Queen Victoria was on the throne\u00e2\u20ac\u0165","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2280"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2284,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2280\/revisions\/2284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}