employment
Simplification, sanctions and cuts won’t create jobs
Over the last few days the coalition has been keen to sell Universal Credit as the answer to all the labour market's problems. After the deepest recession in decades, they are confident they can reduce worklessness by 300,000 jobs (a 'conservative' estimate), reduce child and working age poverty, reduce working-age welfare expenditure by £18 billion and make everyone in work better off, simply by reforming the welfare system.
What are the prospects for another minimum wage increase next year?
The TUC will meet the Low Pay Commission (LPC) on Monday to discuss next year’s National Minimum Wage (NMW) rise. We will be asking for an increase of 3.5 per cent on all the rates, which would increase the adult NMW next year by 21p to £6.14. The NMW needs to increase every year in order to ensure that the earnings of low paid workers do not fall behind.