Living Wage Commission Exposes In-Work Poverty

Unite the union has renewed calls for an immediate increase to the national minimum wage to tackle in-work poverty, following the publication of the Living Wage Commission's findings.

While welcoming the commission's report, the union warned that more and more families were living on the breadline and couldn’t wait for a voluntary living wage to be introduced.

Calling on the government to snap out of its denial of in-work poverty, the union urged it to boost the national minimum wage by £1.50 an hour.

Len McCluskey, Unite general secretary said: "The government cannot dismiss the work of Living Wage Commission or continue in its denial of the growing scandal of in-work poverty.

"The economic growth that George Osborne heralds is passing people’s pay packets by and filling the wallets of the wealthy. In David Cameron’s Britain, the message for ordinary working people struggling to make ends meet is work harder and get poorer.

"The rise of low paid private sector work, which is increasingly the only source of work on offer, ought to be of deep, social concern and will see Britain fall further behind as an economy."

(CD)