It’s no surprise that the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission’s latest report shows that more than five million workers in the UK are trapped in low pay.
How can it be that Britain’s five richest families are worth more than the country’s poorest 20%?
Poverty in the UK is fast reaching crisis point, with more and more workers stuck in a vicious cycle of low pay and rapidly rising prices.
Public service workers have been particularly vulnerable as a result of the government’s false economy of driving down pay across the public sector.
Since the beginning of the summer our members have been leading a fantastic fightback.
The action in local government and schools, meat hygiene and the NHS has placed the issue of low pay firmly in the public consciousness and on the political agenda.
It is deeply unfair that 60% of NHS staff in England have been denied a pay rise this year.
It is a scandal that the lowest paid local government workers receive just fractionally more than the national minimum wage.
The end result is more people relying on in-work benefits to supplement perilously low wages. This is not the way that society should be in one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
The government is doing little to address the widening gap between the rich and poor.
Since 2000, the UK has been the only G7 country where the richest 10% have increased their share of the nation’s wealth. Plans to keep public service wages down and cut in-work support even further will do nothing to bridge this gap.
The starting point for lifting people out of poverty has to be a fair wage for a fair day’s work.
Everybody deserves the dignity of a decent wage, and it is up to us to keep the momentum going in the run up to Living Wage Week and beyond.
