Minimum wage rise is still to low for London

The Government raised the national minimum wage today to £5.80 per hour, a welcome 7p extra for Britain’s working poor. But here in London, and in many other expensive parts of the country, it’s still far too low.

The London Living Wage, calculated by GLA Economics to meet basic living costs, currently stands at £7.60 per hour, almost £2 an hour more! Just imagine earning 23% less than the amount you’d need just to get by. Or imagine working an extra 12 hours per week to make ends meet.

Working poverty accounts for almost half of all child poverty in this city, and one fifth of all London workers – almost 400,000 people – earn less than the Living Wage. That goes up to 47% for part time workers.

Until everyone – especially public bodies and the Government itself – pays the Living Wage or above, we’re failing people and families that are trying to earn a decent life. Darren Johnson has called on the Government to follow the example set by the likes of the GLA, the London Borough of Southwark and even the Royal Bank of Scotland. No small coincidence that it was pressure from Darren and Jenny, the Green members of the London Assembly, who first got the GLA Living Wage Unit set-up, and whose local parties pushed for the first two London boroughs (Southwark and Lewisham) to commit to the policy.


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2 Comments

  1. […] Minimum wage rise is still to low for London « tom's blog tom.acrewoods.net/2009/10/01/minimum-wage-rise-is-still-to-low-for-london – view page – cached 10:10 Arts Brighton09 Climate change Conference Elections Food Free culture Free data Free software GPEX gpex09 Green New Deal Green Party Green politics Growing Southwark Hove Israel Labour Liberal… (Read more)10:10 Arts Brighton09 Climate change Conference Elections Food Free culture Free data Free software GPEX gpex09 Green New Deal Green Party Green politics Growing Southwark Hove Israel Labour Liberal Democrats Living wage Open access Open standards OpenStreetMap Palestine Peace Peckham People & Planet Personal Politics RBS Science Software patents Southwark Sustainability Sustainable Communities Act * My recent tweets + Minimum wage is up but stil £2 too low for London, see my blog post: http://bit.ly/2nhpSU #livingwage 37 minutes ago + Our transport minister wants Dutch-style cycling figures but the RAC tell Boris that cycling is "niche" – http://bit.ly/WR33A 8 hours ago + would love to follow @smsm1 to map Dumfries area, did a wee bit near Kircudbright on a lovely holiday in July! 1 day ago * Flickr Photos (Read less) — From the page […]

    1st October 2009
  2. State Minimum Wage said:

    The London Living Wage, calculated by GLA Economics to meet basic living costs, currently stands at £7.60 per hour, almost £2 an hour more! Just imagine earning 23% less than the amount you’d need just to get by.

    24th December 2009

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