24 October 2023
The Living Wage Foundation has announced that the real living wage has increased to £12 in UK and £13.15 in London. The living wage rates for 2023/24 have been announced today (24 October 2023) and employers will then have six months until 1 May 2024 to implement them.
The real living wage is an hourly rate of pay set independently and updated annually (not the UK government’s National Living Wage (NLW)). It is calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK, and employers choose to pay the living wage on a voluntary basis. Unlike the government minimum wage (NLW for over 23s - £10.42) the real living wage is the only wage rate independently calculated based on rising living costs and applies to everyone over 18 years of age.
Below are the key points from today’s living wage announcement:
- 10% increase in the real living wage as cost of living continues to hit low paid workers the hardest
- over 460,000 living wage workers are set for a pay boost as 14,000 living wage employers are signed up to pay the new rates
- the new real living wage rates are now worth over £3,000 more per year in the UK than the minimum wage, and over £5,000 more in London
- £3bn in extra wages has gone to low paid workers since 2011.
Recent research by the Living Wage Foundation shows that despite inflation easing, the cost-of-living crisis is far from over for Britain’s 3.5m low paid workers. Recent polling of those earning below the real living wage found that 60% have visited a food bank in the past year and 39% regularly skipping meals for financial reasons.
Read the full news story, here.
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