April Fool's Day is a time for pranks, jokes and tall tales but among all the things you hear which attempt to pull the wool over your eyes the announcement that the minimum wage is going up is very real.
To be clear there's the National Living Wage for those aged 21 and over, while the National Minimum Wage is what you at least have to be paid if you're of school leaving age and not yet 21.
It changes every April and this year on 1 April the National Living Wage is going up by 50p per hour worked from £12.21 to the new rate of £12.71.
As for the National Minimum Wage, for under-18s and apprentices this year's increase is 45p an hour taking it from £7.55 to £8, while for those between 18 and 20 years old it'll be an 85p increase from £10 to £10.85.
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Apprentices get the minimum wage for their age group if they're 19 or older and have completed a year of their apprenticeship, while one who has done that and is 21 or over gets the National Living Wage.
Got that?
If you're 21 or over you're now on £12.71 an hour, if you're under 18 then it's £8 and if you're 18 to 20 you'll be on £10.85.
According to the Low Pay Commission around two million Brits are paid at or below the minimum wage in 2026, or about 6.6 percent of the British workforce, and their research indicates the lowest paid people in the country tend to cover a small number of low-paying jobs.
Around a third of those jobs on minimum wage are held in the retail and hospitality sectors.
If you're earning minimum wage and working full time then this pay rise means you'll be paid around £1,000 more a year as a result of the increase.
Of course that pay rise is likely to find many places where it could soon be spent as there are still plenty of cost of living issues to deal with and wage growth is always fighting to keep up with the rate of inflation.
However, not everywhere is a fan of paying Brits more for their work as UKHospitality warned that the wage increases meant an extra £1.4 billion in costs for the sector.
Wages at the bottom end of the pay scale have climbed steadily over the course of the decade, on 1 April 2020 apprentices could be paid as little as £4.15 an hour while the top rate of living wage for those aged 25 and over had been £8.72.
See you next April Fool's Day for the next round of wage increases.
Topics: UK News, Money, Cost of Living
Joe Harker