March 25, 2024

The low pay puzzle

29 minutes

From April, 2.7 million workers will get one of the biggest pay rises in UK history as the National Living Wage rises to £11.44 an hour. But will they feel better off?

It's 25 years since the National Minimum Wage was introduced. During that time it's credited with putting billions of extra pounds in the pockets of low-paid workers. But, despite that, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, two thirds of households living in poverty have at least one adult in work. And, according to the Institute for Fiscal studies, far from cutting the annual benefits bill, the cost of benefits paid to working families has ballooned since 1999 to about 50 billion pounds a year.

So what's behind this low pay puzzle? And what can employers, governments and workers do to ensure that work pays? Pauline Mason investigates.

Presenter: Pauline Mason

Producer: Ravi Naik

Editor: Clare Fordham.

Contributors:

Kate Bell, TUC Assistant General Secretary and former low pay commissioner

Damian Grimshaw, Professor of Employment Studies, Kings College London and London & South Forum Co-Lead at the Productivity Institute

Patricia Findlay, Distinguished Professor of Work and Employment Relations, University of Strathclyde, and Director of the Scottish Centre for Employment Research

Matthew Fell, Low Pay Commissioner and Director of Competitiveness at BusinessLDN

Nye Cominetti, Principal Economist, the Resolution Foundation

James Cockett, Labour Market Economist, CIPD

Margaret Esapa, Managing Director and owner, Cherry Care Services, Oxfordshire

Conor Taylor, Director, Foresso

...more

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By BBC Radio 4

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