At a time when over half the families living in poverty are in-work, a focus on wage inequality is fast becoming the zeitgeist during our economic recovery.
Research by the Resolution Foundation shows that there’s still a long way to go before those earning the least feel optimistic that a recovery is even happening, with low paid jobs increasing and the cost of living squeezing household incomes, the reported 5.24 million people being paid less than the Living Wage in the UK, is an issue to be addressed.
This figure sees an increase of around 400,000 from the 2012 report of 4.82 million by KPMG .
The earliest written evidence in support of a Living Wage dates back to factory worker conditions in the 1890s, with a Liberal MP for Dewsbury pressing the need to ‘maintain the worker...in the highest state of industrial efficiency, with decent surroundings and sufficient leisure’.
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