Between 2000 and 2013 the pay gap between the top 10 per cent and the bottom 10 per cent of earners rose by 5 per cent, according to a new analysis from the Trades Union Congress, released to mark the beginning of 'Fair Pay Fortnight'.
The government should have a minimum wage target of £6.94 an hour and create a powerful watchdog to help workers escape low pay, according to the conclusions of an inquiry chaired by Sir George Bain, one of the original architects of the UK statutory national minimum wage.
The inquiry's final report was published on the day the coalition government announced the minimum wage would rise by 19p – or 3 per cent – to £6.50 an hour and signalled there would be bigger increases in future years.
The Low Pay Commission has recommended a 3 per cent rise in the statutory minimum wage from 1 October 2014, lifting the main adult hourly rate from £6.31 to £6.50. Given the current inflation forecast of 2.3 per cent, this would represent a small real-terms increase – the first such increase for five years.
In a letter to the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, the Commission said the recommended rise would mean the number of jobs covered by the minimum wage would increase by over a third, to one and a quarter million.
The national minimum wage in the UK is no longer strong enough to tackle the country’s low pay problems, according to a report from the Resolution Foundation think tank.
The report presents the interim findings of a review headed by George Bain, who was originally responsible for overseeing the introduction of the minimum wage in 1998 under the previous Labour government.
Tax credits and benefits play a crucial role in lifting low-paid workers out of poverty, according to new research published by the TUC.
An analysis by economist Howard Reed for the TUC, based on a range of fictional households, shows that low-paid workers need both decent pay rises and help from tax credits and benefits if they are to make ends meet.
There were 279,000 jobs in April 2013 that paid less than the national minimum wage, according to new figures released by the Office for National Statistics.
The estimate relates to all jobs held by people aged 16 and over, and is based on data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE).
Almost three-quarters of those workers who were on low pay in 2002 failed to escape from it over the course of the following decade, reveals a new study from the Resolution Foundation think tank.
The study uses data from the New Earnings Survey Panel Dataset, a longitudinal version of the Annual Survey for Hours and Earnings (New Earnings Survey before 2004).
Some of the lowest-paid workers could get pay rises under plans drawn up by Labour leader Ed Miliband. If the party wins the next election, Miliband says Labour will offer firms a 12-month tax break in 2016 if they agree to pay the 'living wage'.
The number of people paid less than a 'living wage' has jumped by more than 400,000 in a year to over 5.2 million, says a report for the international tax and auditing firm KPMG.
The research was based on the Office for National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings for 2012, which included approximately 182,000 returns.
As many as 320,000 people have been trapped on the lowest rung of the pay ladder for five years or more, it has been revealed in a new report from the Resolution Foundation think tank.
The report examines the length of time people remain on the minimum wage, and the characteristics of those groups of workers who remain stuck on it for longest. It uses data from the Annual Survey of Household Earnings and New Earnings Survey Panel Dataset.