By Jaimie Kaffash
27 August 2009
Raising the minimum wage is essential to prevent long-term social deprivation, child poverty campaigners said today (August 27).
Figures published by the Office for National Statistics this week showed that the number of children living in workless households had risen by 170,000 to 1.9 million in the year to June 2009. The amount of adults living in workless households hit 4.8 million, the highest number in a decade.
Reacting to the figures, Theresa May, the shadow work and pensions secretary, urged wholesale reform of the welfare state. She said that the benefits system was to blame for people failing to find work. She told the Policy Exchange forum today: ‘‘There are many people in the 6 million [people out of work] who can work and would like to work. They have been let down by Labour in the past 12 years.
‘Again and again I hear stories from people who have worked for all their lives but now find the benefits system impossible to navigate. Stories from those who want to do all they can to find a new job but find their way blocked by complicated and inflexible rules.’ She added that the priority should be on ‘those who can work and desperately want to’.
But a spokesman for the Child Poverty Action Group told Public Finance that ministers must raise the minimum wage to keep people who are in work above the poverty line. ‘We think that all parties should be looking at the extent of poverty in the UK. Employers should be setting pay at a level that would bring families out of poverty,’ he said.
‘We’re going to see more parents who had a level of pay that kept them above the poverty line. They have been fortunate enough to keep their jobs but, because of cutbacks, they may have seen their pay packets cut or put in the situation where they have to take a pay cut or lose their job,’ he added.
27 August 2009
Raising the minimum wage is essential to prevent long-term social deprivation, child poverty campaigners said today (August 27).
Figures published by the Office for National Statistics this week showed that the number of children living in workless households had risen by 170,000 to 1.9 million in the year to June 2009. The amount of adults living in workless households hit 4.8 million, the highest number in a decade.
Reacting to the figures, Theresa May, the shadow work and pensions secretary, urged wholesale reform of the welfare state. She said that the benefits system was to blame for people failing to find work. She told the Policy Exchange forum today: ‘‘There are many people in the 6 million [people out of work] who can work and would like to work. They have been let down by Labour in the past 12 years.
‘Again and again I hear stories from people who have worked for all their lives but now find the benefits system impossible to navigate. Stories from those who want to do all they can to find a new job but find their way blocked by complicated and inflexible rules.’ She added that the priority should be on ‘those who can work and desperately want to’.
But a spokesman for the Child Poverty Action Group told Public Finance that ministers must raise the minimum wage to keep people who are in work above the poverty line. ‘We think that all parties should be looking at the extent of poverty in the UK. Employers should be setting pay at a level that would bring families out of poverty,’ he said.
‘We’re going to see more parents who had a level of pay that kept them above the poverty line. They have been fortunate enough to keep their jobs but, because of cutbacks, they may have seen their pay packets cut or put in the situation where they have to take a pay cut or lose their job,’ he added.
