LIVING WAGE UP

Today increases in the living wage have been announced. Outside London it rises to £8.25 an hour and in London £9.40 an hour.

Slowly the wage is spreading. 2000 businesses are now signed up to it. They include major national companies like Barclays Bank and Lidl and in Cornwall a growing number of local companies and organisations such as Cornwall Council, Volunteer Cornwall, and St Merryn Holiday Park.

However, a large proportion of workers in Cornwall, fulltime and part time, are paid less than the living wage. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) says that last year 31.6 percent of all workers in Cornwall were paid less than the then living wage.

Let us welcome the progress but push for more to get it.

Note that this is the real living wage not George Osborne’s “national living wage” which will be £7.20 an hour for those over twenty five.