Here’s hoping Hebden Royd Town Council will accept the recommendations of the York Fairness Commission and make Hebden a Living Wage Town.

The York Fairness Commission, set up by York Council to investigate how the Council can reduce social inequalities and increase fairness in York, has recommended that the Council should

“make York a Living Wage City and inspire Yorkshire to become a Living Wage Region”.

The Living Wage is now set at £7.45 per hour – an increase of 25 pence on the previous rate of £7.20 per hour.  The Living Wage is the pay needed to provide an adequate standard of living. It compares to the national minimum wage rate of £6.19 an hour.

In its annual Monitoring Poverty report, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation finds that 6.1 million people in working households live in poverty – more than the 5.1 million who live in working-age households where no one has a job.

Julia Unwin, the foundation’s chief executive, said:

“The most distinctive characteristic of poverty today is the very high number of working people who are also poor.”

The Trades Union Council has just issued a report that shows how the Coalition Government cuts will disproportionately affect those on the lowest incomes, and will effectively take away 30% of their income.

A CAB advice worker has written a well-informed account of the shocking poverty in the UK that results from the low wage, casualised/flexible hours economy where over the last decades the rich have got richer at the expense of the poor who are getting poorer.