The current cost of living is pushing more people into poverty, with almost 68% of low income...
Low pay
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14/03/2012
Part-time jobs skewed to low paid
Improving the quality of part-time opportunities for second earners is crucial to reducing child poverty, according to a new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Building A Sustainable Quality Part-time Recruitment Market.
The report shows that the part-time recruitment market is skewed strongly in favour of vacancies with salaries below £20,000 full-time equivalent earnings. It found that resistance to part-time recruitment was highest among employers who had not previously recruited part-time staff at over £20,000 full-time equivalent earnings. The report argues that:
Category: News stories -
08/03/2012
Low income families squeezed hard by rising inflation
The government’s austerity measures and rising inflation are eating into the budgets of low income families, according to the charity Family Action. The report shows that among families helped by the charity, fuel and food costs were placing family budgets under intense pressure, leaving nothing for parents to save for their children’s future, or for fun activities other children could enjoy such as a school disco.
Category: News stories -
19/01/2012
Supermarket employees struggle on low wages
Most employees of the large supermarket chains feel they do not have enough to live on, according to a report by the Fair Pay Network, Face the Difference. The report finds that, of the 900,000 employees of the four largest supermarket chains (Tesco, Sainsbury’s, ASDA and Morrisons), 86 per cent earn less than the living wage. More than half of those interviewed said they didn’t earn enough to live on, with nearly a fifth saying that they could no longer afford new shoes or clothes for their children.
For this report the Fair Pay Network interviewed one hundred employees of the four supermarkets from four English regions between June and December 2011.
The full report is available from the Fair Pay Network website.
See also:
Category: Reports -
19/01/2012
Supermarket employees struggle on low wages
Most employees of the large supermarket chains feel they do not have enough to live on, according to a report by the Fair Pay Network, Face the Difference. The report finds that, of the 900,000 employees of the four largest supermarket chains (Tesco, Sainsbury's, ASDA and Morrisons), 86 per cent earn less than the living wage. More than half of those interviewed said they didn't earn enough to live on, with nearly a fifth that they could no longer afford new shoes or clothes for their children.
For this report the Fair Pay Network interviewed one hundred employees of the four supermarkets from four English regions between June and December 2011.
The full report is available from the Fair Pay Network website.
See also:
Category: Reports -
18/01/2012
Burden of economic downturn taken by low paid
The lowest paid have taken the brunt of the downturn in the UK economy from 2007 to 2011, finds a TUC Touchstone Extra report, All In This Together. The rise in unemployment and falls in real wages have been concentrated among the lowest paid, while those at the very top have seen their pay increase. The report provides an in-depth examination of the impact of the downturn on the workforce. One of the principal effects has been job losses. Looking at the groups that have been most likely to lose their jobs, the report finds:
Category: Reports -
01/01/2012
Intervention in labour markets needed to reduce poverty
The delivery of New Labour’s anti-poverty goals was hampered by an unwillingness to countenance a wider range of labour market interventions to reduce employers’ reliance on low pay, according to a report by the Smith Institute, From the Poor Law to Welfare to Work: What Have We Learned from a Century of Anti-poverty Policies? The authors, led by David Coats, examined a wide range of studies to determine the long-term effectiveness of strategies, both in the UK and internationally, to reduce poverty and inequality. The cornerstone of the report’s analysis is the contention that while redistribution of income through welfare is essential, it can be only one part of the solution to combating poverty:
The evidence from more than a century of reform is that lasting reductions in poverty and inequality also demand pre-distribution policies, notably in the labour market (through work and pay).
Category: Reports -
03/12/2011
More jobs needed to tackle poverty
More than half of children living in poverty have a parent in paid employment, finds the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in their report, Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2011.
The report, produced with the New Policy Institute, warns that ‘the coalition does not have a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy and relies too much on the tax and benefits system alone to encourage people into work, mistakes also made by Labour’. It is also highly critical of the lack of a plan to address problems associated with the rise of badly paid and insecure jobs – more than half of all children in poverty are living with a parent in paid work. It says that:
Category: Reports -
01/11/2011
The Cost of Inequality: Three Decades of the Super-Rich and the Economy by Stewart Lansley
London, Gibson Square Books, 320 pp, ISBN-10: 1908096063 (hbk)
Lansley argues that the soaring inequality of recent decades is not just an issue of social justice but has also had significant negative implications for the economy. The increased concentration of income and wealth at the top of society since the early 1980s, especially in the UK and the USA and more latterly in parts of continental Europe, has led to greater economic turbulence, slower growth and greater economic fragility, culminating in the crash of 2008/09.
The author maintains that the persistence of inequality is now central to the lack of global recovery. He also:
Category: -
19/10/2011
Fuel poverty leads to ill-health
Fuel poverty is a ‘distinct and serious’ problem producing physical and mental ill-health and excess winter deaths, argues Interim Report on Fuel Poverty commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Fuel poverty arises from a combination of high fuel costs, low incomes and poorly insulated homes and a household is defined as ‘fuel poor’ if more than 10 per cent of its income is spent keeping the home adequately warm (21°C in the living room). John Hills, the report’s author, argues that it is essential to improve the energy efficiency of the housing stock but that people on low incomes are often living in the least energy efficient properties and are not in a position to invest in remedial measures. He proposes a new method of measuring fuel poverty, which combines low incomes with high costs.
Category: Reports -
01/10/2011
Low pay underpins child poverty
Work in itself is not a solution to poverty, in part because of the spread of low pay work over the last 30 years, argues Richard Dickens in the latest National Institute Economic Review (vol. 218, no. 1). In his article, ‘Child poverty in Britain: past lessons and future prospects’, Dickens examines the impact on child poverty of changes over the past decade in wages and work, tax and benefits, and demographics. He finds that benefit reform increased work among families with children but this did not translate into large falls in child poverty – those entering work depended on substantial increases in benefits to lift them over the poverty line. Changes in the wage structure and demographics increased poverty, while changes to benefits (and, to a lesser extent, taxes) over that period had reduced poverty by making the tax/benefit system more progressive and by favouring families with children over those without children.
Category: Reports
