By Joe Burns, Commission Member
UK Poverty and the Real Living Wage – This was the title of the National Justice & Peace Network (NJPN) Open Networking Day held on Saturday 16 November 2024. The Leeds J&P Commission hosted this event on behalf of NJPN.
The event opened with a presentation from Sara Bryson, Assistant Director (North) for Citizens UK. Sara spoke passionately and eloquently about the disgrace of 4 million children in the UK growing up in families that are experiencing poverty.
In a couple of slides she provided some key statistics that really brought home the severity of the situation across the country, and particularly related them to the Newcastle upon Tyne area, where she lives.
One of the key facts is that 70% of people experiencing poverty are in a household where at least one person is working.
The brutal reality for many people is that being in low paid, insecure work means that they are constantly having to think about how they juggle their money to make ends meet, week in and week out. Often, it is food or meals that are missed (especially by parents).
If you are on a zero hours contract then it is not possible to plan ahead further than the next week – as you do not know how much work you might have.
The current Government has plans to improve rights around these types of working arrangements and they cannot come too soon.
However, low pay is still a real issue. Despite low pay being renamed by the previous government as the ‘Living Wage’ (from the ‘minimum wage’) it is not sufficient to live a dignified life in the way that God intended. That is why the Living Wage Foundation developed the concept of the ‘Real Living Wage’ – which is based on what employees and their families need to live.
Sara went on the describe how, through the Citizens Organising Movement in the North east, they have been campaigning to get businesses and organisations across the region to pay the Real Living wage. It has clearly been a difficult task with employers of all shades having all sorts of excuses for not paying it. But they persevered and now have a number of key employers who have been accredited by the Real Living Wage Foundation.
Nationally, over 15,000 employers are now accredited.
The Real Living Wage is not a panacea (amending the two child limit for child benefit introduced by Iain Duncan-Smith was something else that really came through strongly in Sara’s talk as a simple measure that would have a large impact).
However, it would make a real difference to a large number of people living in poverty. This is something that we in West Yorkshire could join in with – West Yorkshire Citizens has already been campaigning on this issue.
For more information see https://www.livingwage.org.uk/ and
https://www.citizensuk.org/campaigns/the-campaign-for-a-real-living-wage/
Email us if you would like support to try and do something in your area.