The misleadingly named ‘national living wage’ is being introduced on 1 April. For some time press and online comments on it have shown that there is much confusion between it and the real Living
Wage. Very many commentators, including those on Wikipedia apparently, seem to think they are simply different levels of the same concept, a minimum wage rate, without grasping that the real LW is based on the contribution earnings make to minimum adequate
household incomes taking account of other relevant government transfers, while the Osborne higher minimum wage rate version pays no regard to living decency standards, household needs or transfer payments.
I’d written a couple of longer pieces about this politically motivated misrepresentation last year* but was recently asked to write a one-page simple explanation of the problem suitable for use
in a wide range of contexts. It’s been peer reviewed and edited to take account of helpful comments so I hope it does the job adequately.
It’s attached and if you find it helpful, please give it the maximum publicity since this isn’t an academic matter. There’s a serious risk that publics [including voters, politicians and journalists]
and eligible low paid workers will be misled into believing that the NLW meets the public’s minimum decency standards when it doesn’t and wasn’t designed to do so. This mystification then risks ‘blaming the victim’ for not managing on the inadequate income
which the NLW continues to offer.
Please excuse the inevitable duplications. I’m sorry, but I hope you understand.
John Veit-Wilson.
*
http://www.cost-ofliving.net/stealing-a-good-name/
“Osborne’s fictitious ‘living wage’”, in:
Radical Statistics 113, 2015, pp 39-47
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From Professor John Veit-Wilson
Newcastle University GPS -- Sociology
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, England.
Tel: 0044[0]191-208 7498