"The TUC said that Rachel Reeves must deliver a living standards budget on Wednesday to ease the pressure on working households whose incomes have remained stagnant in more than a decade. Analysis by the unions showed working people were just 12 a week better off compared with 2008 after a painful Tory pay hangover. Real wages grew at an average of just 0.04% each year under the Conservative government between May 2010 and April 2024, it found."
"Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, said: This budget must be a living standards budget. Households up and down the country [are] still suffering a painful Tory pay hangover leaving this Labour government with lots of ground to make up. He urged Reeves to show ambition on the minimum wage. He also called for action to bring down energy bills, and for scrapping the two-child benefit cap in full."
"Meanwhile, business groups have renewed calls for the chancellor to make hard choices for growth by bringing down the cost of welfare and state pensions, and rethinking the employment rights bill. Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI chief executive, said: If growth is your priority, prove it make hard choices for it. Against opposition, against short-term politics. Be it"
Unions demand a living-standards budget focused on raising wages, reducing child poverty and increasing the national minimum wage while resisting business pressure to weaken employment rights. TUC analysis shows real wages grew only 0.04% annually between May 2010 and April 2024, leaving workers roughly £12 a week better off than in 2008 and public service workers with no increase. Unions call for lowering energy bills and fully removing the two-child benefit cap. New polling shows 83% of the public agree no child should be living in poverty. Business groups push for cuts to welfare and state pensions and employment-rights reform.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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