Government urged to raise minimum wage to £15 an hour 'as soon as possible'
The government has been called upon to increase the minimum wage to £15 an hour ‘as soon as possible’.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) have urged parliament to take action amid an escalating cost of living crisis that’s prompted bleak warnings from economists as inflation soars.
At current, the minimum wage for workers aged 23 and over is £9.50, while younger workers earn lower rates.
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TUC’s general secretary Frances O’Grady told LADbible: “Working people are coming together to fight for better pay and conditions. But they need a government that’s serious about getting wages rising too.
“Low-paid workers live wage packet to wage packet – and they are now being pushed to the brink by eye-watering bills and soaring prices.
“While millions are struggling to keep their heads above water, those at the top continue to rake it in.”
O’Grady added: “Profits are up, dividend pay-outs are soaring, and executive pay is out of control. It’s only right that working people get their fair share of the wealth they create.
“After 12 years of declining living standards, it's time to make work pay. Let’s get wages rising in every corner of the country and get on the pathway to a £15 minimum wage.”
Just last week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a bleak analysis that showed workers’ wages are lagging behind inflation, which could sky-rocket to 18.6% by the beginning of 2023 as energy prices continue to rise.
While regular pay increased by 4.7% over the three months to June, pay checks didn’t keep up with inflation, which peaked to a 40-year-high last month and hit 9.4% in June.
The TUC has insisted the government help boost worker pay via urgent reforms.
LADbible has contacted the Government Finance Function for comment.
Back in June, Olly Bartrum, a senior economist at the Institute for Government, warned that we’re all in for an extremely tight couple of years.
Bartrum shared: “If you look at the headline figures, real household disposable income - one of our best measures of living standards - is going to fall this year and next year. The size of the fall this financial year – 2022 to 2023 – will be the largest since records began in the 1950s. That is absolutely huge.”
He continued: “When you look at the distribution and how it hits different people, the story gets even more grim because although households spend broadly similar proportions of their household income on energy bills, it will hit lower income households much harder because they have much less disposable income to cushion this blow."
Aisha Nozari