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Employers - are you ready for the living wage?
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Posted in Employers on Mar 29, 2016 by Richard Hayden
From 1st April 
2016, all workers aged 25 and over are legally entitled to at least £7.20 per hour. This means that an annual salary needs to be £14,200 based on a standard 37½ hour week.
The new Living Wage policy adds a new scale to the National Minimum Wage for those 25 and over. The current National Minimum Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £6.70 and those 18-20 is £5.30 per hour which remains the same following an increase in October 2015.
The living wage will be the fastest rise in the minimum wage in UK history and will see the wages for low-paid workers rise four times faster than average earnings this year.
The Living Wage Foundation
The new living wage policy should not be confused with The Living Wage Foundation which promotes an informal benchmark, not a legally enforceable minimum level of pay. The UK's voluntary living wage is currently set at £8.25 per hour and in London it is £9.15.
More than 2,000 businesses, with almost 70,000 workers, are signed up to the living wage scheme. "These employers are not waiting for government to tell them what to do. Their actions are helping to end the injustice that is in-work poverty in the UK now," said Sarah Vero, director of the Living Wage Foundation in November 2015.
History of the Living Wage Foundation
The modern UK Living Wage Campaign was launched by members of London Citizens in 2001. The founders were parents in the East End of London, who wanted to remain in work, but found that despite working two or more minimum wage jobs they were struggling to make ends meet and were left with no time for family and community life.
The Living Wage campaign has since grown into a national movement. Local campaigns began emerging across the UK offering the opportunity to involve many more employers and lift many more thousands of families out of working poverty.
The Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation began calculating a UK wide Minimum Income Standard (MIS) figure. Following consultation with campaigners, trade unions, employers who support the Living Wage and HR specialists, Citizens UK launched the Living Wage Foundation and Living Wage Employer mark.
These new initiativ
es from the UK wide campaign recognise and celebrate the responsible leadership shown by Living Wage Employers and support employers to incorporate the Living Wage into organisational structures long term.Paying the Living Wage is a recognised sign of good practice in employment. There are now thousands of employers signed up and proudly displaying the Living Wage Employer Mark.
