Britain Needs A Pay Rise
15 Oct 2014
Workers are struggling with the biggest pay squeeze the country has suffered in 150 years, a report claims today. Average wages have failed to keep pace with inflation for the seventh consecutive year, the longest decline since records began in Victorian times.
Real-terms pay is down 8.2 per cent since 2007 when cost-of-living figures are taken into account, an analysis of Bank of England earnings and inflation figures shows. Even the economic collapse of the 1920s saw a quicker recovery in earnings.
Tens of thousands will march through central London on Saturday calling on all employers who can afford it to reward their workforce. The Britain Needs a Pay Rise demonstration, organised by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), will also urge the Government to lift its freeze on public sector pay increases.
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “It’s shocking that even the most the infamous periods of pay depression in the last 150 years pale in comparison with the current seven-year slump in earning.”
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