Proactive Investors - Employers that pay staff the Real Living Wage (RLW) will have to find an extra 10% after it was increased to £12 in the UK and £13.10 in London on Tuesday.
Providing workers with a salary that is independently calculated by think tank Resolution Foundation and is based on what is required for people to live on, the Living Wage Foundation has always offered a wage that is higher than the government’s national living wage.
Around 14,000 employers pay their staff the RLW, including half of the FTSE 100 and privately-owned household names like Ikea, Liverpool FC, Lush and Nationwide.
Some of the FTSE 350 companies which pay the RLW include:
- Barclays (LON:BARC)
- Admiral
- Burberry
- Watches of Switzerland
- Unilever (LON:ULVR)
- BP (LON:BP)
- AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN)
- HSBC (LON:HSBA)
- Diageo (LON:DGE)
Notably, the major supermarkets and a large proportion of leading retailer like Next and JD Sports don’t pay their workers the RLW.
Companies like Aviva (LON:AV) and Abrdn have gone further than just paying the RLW and are now 100 Living Hours employers, guaranteeing staff a minimum of 16 hours of work a week.
Katherine Chapman, Living Wage Foundation director, said: “As inflation eases, we cannot forget that low-paid workers remain at the sharp end of the cost of living crisis. Low-paid workers continue to struggle with stubbornly high prices because they spend a larger share of their budget on food and energy.
“These new real Living Wage rates are a lifeline for the 460,000 workers who will get a pay rise.”