Over 5 million people earn below the Living Wage
6 May 2014
A strand of Labour's 'Cost-Of-Living Contract' launched last week is a commitment to strengthen the Minimum Wage and to provide tax breaks to firms to encourage the Living Wage. They took to Facebook to claim:
Research conducted for KPMG put the latest figure at an estimated 5.24 million people in the UK earning below the Living Wage, based on the 2012 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and the living wage threshold in October 2013.
This is up from its previous estimate of 4.83 million employee jobs, which we looked into at the time.
Using the most recent earnings figures and living wage figures for London and the rest of the UK, we've calculated about 5.3 million people earn on or below the living wage.