Boris Johnson to raise minimum wages by four times inflation
Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2019 1:53 amEmployees over 25 will receive a 6.2% pay rise equating to £930 a year for full-time worker
Almost 3 million workers in Britain are to receive a pay rise of more than four times the rate of inflation from April, after the government said it would increase the official minimum wage.
In an announcement designed to woo low-paid workers in the immediate aftermath of Boris Johnson’s election victory earlier this month, the government said the national living wage for over-25s would increase from £8.21 an hour to £8.72 from the start of April.
Johnson said the increase was the “biggest ever cash boost” to the legal pay floor. “Hard work should always pay, but for too long people haven’t seen the pay rises they deserve,” he said.
Workers over the age of 25 on the legal minimum wage, rebranded as the “national living wage” four years ago, will receive an annual pay rise of 6.2% from April – more than quadruple the level of the consumer price index (CPI) gauge of inflation, which stood at 1.5% in October. The Treasury said the increase equated to an increase in gross annual earnings of around £930 for a full-time worker on the current minimum rate.
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Pay rates will also rise above inflation across all other age groups, including by 6.5% for 21-24-year-olds to £8.20, by 4.9% to £6.45 for 18-20-year-olds, by 4.6% to £4.55 for under-18s and 6.4% to £4.15 for apprentices.
