Friday 1 April 2016

Minimum Wage

Today the minimum wage has been re-branded to the living wage and increased approximately 10%.

It was started back in 1999 at £3.30 per hour and is now being upped from £6.60 to £7.20 per hour eventually culminating at £9.00 per hour in 2020.

Back in 1999 there were a lot of scare stories about businesses folding under the strain of paying people a decent rate, it never happened, once again this spectre is raising it's head and the likely hood is that business will just pass the costs on. One sector that might find that difficult is social care which is paid for by the government.

One thing that should be taken into account is that most people on the living wage do not work a 40 or even a 35 hour week, it is usually about 20 hours a week and that equates to £144 or £7488 per year which is not the sort of salary that can afford to rent or buy in this country today.

The government will ask the Low Pay Commission, which currently recommends the level of the minimum wage, to suggest a figure for the National Living Wage in April 2017. It is expected that that the National Living Wage should continue to increase to reach 60% of median earnings by 2020, subject to sustained economic growth.

Previous related posts:-
caldariborderzone.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/we-are-all-in-it-together.html
caldariborderzone.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/living-wage-week.html

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