Tory benefit cuts will destroy benefit of new living wage

Last Updated: September 26, 2015By

Tory liar: George Osborne promised a living wage but will deliver more people into financial hardship. If you’re working or middle class and voted for him, you must be feeling really stupid now.

Please tell me none of the readers of Vox Political were stupid enough to think that George Osborne was actually promising a living wage. Instead, even more people will end up struggling to make ends meet.

And that’s just the way Osborne – and everyone else in the Conservative Government – wants it.

A record 6.5 million people – almost a quarter of UK workers – will remain trapped on poverty pay next year, despite George Osborne’s 50p-an-hour increase in the national minimum wage, according to research by the Resolution Foundation thinktank.

Adam Corlett, Resolution’s economic analyst, said: “While the chancellor’s new wage floor will give a welcome boost to millions of Britain’s lowest-paid staff, it cannot guarantee a basic standard of living or compensate for the £12bn of welfare cuts that were announced alongside it.

The chancellor announced the introduction of a “national living wage” in his July budget. It was an eyecatching bid for the votes of Britain’s workers and will see the statutory minimum pay rate for over-25s increase from £6.70 an hour to £7.20 next April – and to about £9 an hour by 2020.

But the new national minimum will still fall short of an actual “living wage”, calculated on the basis of the cost of basic essentials, including housing, food and transport, that has been the centrepiece of a long-running public campaign.

In its annual Low Pay Britain report, to be published next week, the Resolution Foundation will suggest that the living wage will have to be higher – £8.25 an hour outside the capital in 2016 – in part to compensate for the reductions in tax credits and benefits also announced in the budget. Households that receive less in welfare payments will need higher wages to make ends meet.

Resolution forecasts that, despite Osborne’s announcement, the number of people struggling to survive on less than the living wage will continue to rise, hitting 6.5 million people, or 24.4% of employees, in 2016 – up from 5 million, or less than 20% of workers, in 2012.

Source: Tory welfare cuts will destroy benefit of new living wage, research shows | Society | The Guardian

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10 Comments

  1. Nick September 27, 2015 at 12:29 am - Reply

    the living wage will not cover the costs of high rents and house prices and Osborne should have been told that at the dispatch box when he made that stupid statement

    you would have thought at least one mp would have made that clear at the time as just leaving up in the air as is so often the case means you cant get back on that topic so it is lost

    the living wage of £18,000 per year per person when broken down in 5 years time means a take home pay of around £1,300 which is far from a living wage when a typical rent social is around £700 per month private £1,200 and that is now at this time so this living wage needs to be reevaluated

    Osborne is not a masters degree economist and it shows and neither are the other MPs

    going to governor of the bank of England for help doesn’t help either as if you don’t understand economics yourself you’re at the mercy of others for your advice and that’s never a good sign

    you must have a good grounding in life of your skill set whatever it may be if you want other professional people worldwide to take you seriously. otherwise you just end up looking a fool

    • Nick September 27, 2015 at 1:51 pm - Reply

      also you have to remember that purchasing a 3 bed family house where i live in west sussex is around £250,000 which is low average for the south of england which means around a £25,000 deposit and a monthly interest payment of around £1,000 per month plus you will then need to find a payment method to pay off the loan as endowments that were used in the past to pay the loan off are no longer advisable and in most cases not even available

  2. marcusdemowbray September 27, 2015 at 7:00 am - Reply

    Classic: with the current Tories Slash and Burn cuts, and more austerity (i.e. continuing stagnation). When they finally, for the first time since they have been in power, give some GOOD news, it turns out NOT to be good at all, because whatever they give with one hand they claw back more with the other. Go Corbyn!

  3. Lovejoy September 27, 2015 at 7:45 am - Reply

    Plus it’s to kick in prior to his first general election – he’s as cunning as a snake.

  4. Mr.Angry September 27, 2015 at 7:54 am - Reply

    Osborne is one of life’s failures, he lives off daddy’s wealth, as regards a chancellor is as much good as a chocolate fireguard.

    I would not trust him as a milk monitor @ school, let alone with the economy. He is slowly destroying the British way of life and our long standing, hard fought-for institutions.

    Millions are suffering at the hands of this incompetent idiot and worse yet to come.

    Who ever voted for this imbecile should hang their heads in shame. I hope they realize what they have done to their fellow human beings.

  5. dez September 27, 2015 at 10:06 am - Reply

    Lets see if the £8.25 actually materialises first and what collateral damage to workers hours/redundancies take place to compensate employers. As for the pie in the sky £9 per hour in four years time that is probably PR fantasy and has no meaning other than looking good to the low paid. I’m just happy to paying my tax keeping those bank bosses, taxpayers own,in the luxury they deserve for screwing this country up.

  6. lambtonwyrm September 27, 2015 at 4:30 pm - Reply

    It’s all smoke and mirrors with this government.

  7. neil September 28, 2015 at 10:54 am - Reply

    I mentioned in a meeting at work last week that we are currently paid a small percentage more than minimum wage and asked if we would be paid the same amount over the new ‘living wage’. The manager tried to tell me that the living wage would incorperate any and all upgrades, such as shift pay and extra for driving forklifts. Huh? Please tell me you’re kidding. Surely that is bull****. Even if it isn’t what about those who don’t work shifts or operate machinery, are they going to be paid the same as the likes of me that do? If so I might as well take a job on days with no extra safety responsibilities. Unfortunately with the 24/7 economy there are less and less jobs working straight days and shift working is now normal for many people and while it does allow for some families to have two bread winners, not every couple want to only see their partners at weekends. Many people only work shifts to make their wages up, so what is going happen if companies like the one I work for try to take the extra away?

    • Brian September 28, 2015 at 1:39 pm - Reply

      My experience of your statement is a little more extreme, this country has gone backward from the 1970’s and before. Once, although a lower per head capita of earnings, ‘one’ working ‘middle class’ wage was sufficient to fund a mortgage, family and living cost with all state demands met. Now, we are enslaved to serve the greed of the rich with short termism goals.

  8. mrmarcpc September 28, 2015 at 3:47 pm - Reply

    Soon the working class of the UK will have no money at all and will only receive food stamps, but not just for the people on welfare, for everyone, either if you’re working or not, so all of us will be tarred and feathered as the poor, peasant scum that we are, they don’t want anyone else but themselves to have lots of money, just for them greedy pigs, and we will be left with nothing!

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