What is the Living Wage?
The Living Wage is the wage rate that is necessary to provide employees with an acceptable standard of living - it is the minimum that most people will need to live on.
The Living Wage rate is recalculated every year, and is currently £7.65 per hour, £1.34 more than the national Minimum Wage. (A higher rate of £8.80 has been calculated for London, because of the higher cost of living there.)
While employers are legally required to pay Minimum Wage to employees, payment of Living Wage is voluntary. However there are many advantages to paying Living Wage, for employers and for wider society, as well as for employees themselves.
Why pay Living Wage?
The Minimum Wage is not a Living Wage, which means that many workers have to seek extra hours of overtime or a second job, leaving little time for family life. Many are left without enough income to pay essential bills, and may be forced into debt as a result. Some have reported having to skip meals, or not being able to heat their homes adequately.The Living Wage allow workers who would otherwise struggle to make ends meet to cover their essential expenditures.
The Living Wage also benefits the economy, since recipients become more economically active. It benefits employers, who report improved morale and performance, and lower staff turnover, after introducing Living Wage; and it takes a first step towards reducing poverty and income inequality, which has been shown to be damaging to the whole community.
But what about..?
Some people argue that employers cannot afford to pay a living wage, and would be forced to lay people off in order to introduce it. A similar argument was made against the National Minimum Wage when it was first introduced. The large, profitable corporations which are our major employers could certainly absorb the cost, and paying Living Wage should really be a goal for all employers - in the end, it is difficult to make a moral or economic case for not paying your employees enough to live on. This is why the Living Wage enjoys wide support across charities, companies, unions and political parties.
Living Wage in Frome
Frome is a relatively impoverished area - the average income in Frome is considerably less than the national average. The problems associated with inadequate wages are particularly acute here, so the advantages to be gained from the Living Wage would mean a lot to local people.
Furthermore, Frome is a town with a great community spirit, and a real interest in fairness and sustainability - as the success of Fairtrade and green initiatives have shown. The Living Wage fits well with this ethos - it is surely only fair for people to be paid an adequate wage, and it cannot be economically sustainable not to do so.
The aims of the Living Wage Frome campaign are:
- Raise awareness of the benefits of the Living Wage for everyone, and provide information on the Living Wage
- Encourage employers in Frome to pay Living Wage - this includes both small local businesses, and larger national companies who employ people locally.
- Publish a directory of local employers who pay Living Wage, allowing consumers to choose to support these businesses
We would love to see Frome become a 'Living Wage town' in just the same way that it is already a Fairtrade town.
Tell me more!
For more information on the Living Wage, please see the website of the Living Wage Foundation.
For a more in-depth examination, you can read the report Beyond the Bottom Line from the Institute for Public Policy Research (pdf document)
For more on the hardship caused by low wages, please see the Working for Poverty report from the Living Wage Commission (pdf document)
For data on relative incomes across the country, see this report on the Guardian Data Blog