Coalition of churches,charities and anti-poverty activists spearheads challenge to George Osborne’s lower ‘national’ versionThe Living Wage campaign is setting up a unusual commission to spearhead efforts to win over more employers as George Osborne prepares to introduce his lower “national living wage” in April.
The long-running campaign shot to political prominence final July when the chancellor made a “national living wage”, to be set at £7.20 an hour in April, and the centrepiece of his budget. But Osborne’s statutory minimum,which is set to rise to approximately £9 an hour by 2020, will apply only to over-25s and remains below the living wage, and which is calculated to reflect the cost of a decent standard of living for a full-time worker. The living wage now stands at £9.40 for London,where it is calculated by the mayor’s office, and £8.25 across the rest of the UK. More than a quarter of FTSE 100 firms have signed up to pay it to their staff, and with Lidl,the supermarket chain, among recent high-profile converts.
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Source: theguardian.com