A Living Wage part 2 - some evidence for student analysis

Jonny Clark has beaten me to it with his blog about today's news about the Living Wage - there is a rich seam of resources here for issues for study around poverty and inequality. The concept has high level support - hailed by Boris Johnson as it is "....not only morally right, but (it)makes good business sense too." and endorsed by Ed Miliband as " A really important idea". I would like to add a trio of items from the BBC website which could add evidence to student analysis - particularly as Nov 4th-10th is designated Living Wage Week , so this could make a timely topic on the return from half term!

The first is a report of Dundee City Council's plans to introduce the living wage as a minimum for its staff from the start of November. The second is an article written by Stephanie Flanders in which she considers the costs and benefits. For example the IFS calculated in 2010 that bringing every private sector worker up to the living wage would raise total earnings (before tax) by around £12bn - of which roughly half - £6bn - would go directly to the government, in higher tax revenues and lower benefit and tax credit payments. The cost of paying that increased wage would need to be met by employers, not the government, but those who are paying it report much easier recruitment, lower staff turnover and and much less absenteeism, so it could be argued to pay for itself. She goes on to consider what she calls the 'dark side' of the UK employment market, with some calculations of the effect that higher unemployment has on depressing wage rises.

Finally there was also an excellent interview with Mike Constantine of Lush Cosmetics, an employer who is implementing the Living Wage, on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning - here is the link to it.