{"id":1863,"date":"2016-01-29T08:57:17","date_gmt":"2016-01-29T08:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/?p=1863"},"modified":"2016-01-29T08:57:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-29T08:57:17","slug":"new-national-living-wage-now-how-does-that-compare-with-a-living-wage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/new-national-living-wage-now-how-does-that-compare-with-a-living-wage\/","title":{"rendered":"New national living wage \u2013 now how does that compare with a living wage?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span class=\"blue\"><strong>What is the legal development?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>On 22 January 2016 <a title=\"The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2016\" href=\"http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/uksi\/2016\/68\/pdfs\/uksi_20160068_en.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2016 <\/a>were passed and will come into effect on 1 April 2016.<\/p>\n<p>They effectively create a new higher rate of national minimum wage for employees aged 25 years and over and introduce steeper penalties for non-compliance.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"blue\"><strong>What does this mean in practice for employers?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In simple terms: \u00a0compliance with a higher rate of national minimum wage for those aged 25 and over \u2013 a \u2018national living wage\u2019. There may also be employee relations consequences for other employees currently earning more than their less qualified colleagues, as the pay gap may have reduced with the increase in the minimum wage rate.<\/p>\n<p>But what does it mean for employers who aspire to be \u2018living wage\u2019 employers?<\/p>\n<p>For many years the Living Wage Foundation has promoted payment of a \u2018voluntary living wage\u2019 (based on quite different calculations) at a higher hourly rate (currently \u00a39.40 in London and \u00a38.25 elsewhere in the UK).<\/p>\n<p>So what will values driven organisations do? Will some employers latch on to the new \u2018national living wage\u2019 and promote this as an ethical badge (even though it is a statutory minimum requirement)? Or will they continue to pursue the \u2018voluntary living wage\u2019 with its different calculations and higher rate to demonstrate a willingness to pay a real living wage?\u00a0 When you drill down, there are some distinct differences between the \u2018national living wage\u2019 and the \u2018voluntary living wage\u2019, apart from just the rates.<\/p>\n<p>We have discussed this dilemma with a number of businesses. They have approached the issue from varying positions (with wide ranging commercial, ethical and values driven priorities) leading to some fascinating dilemmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is the legal development? On 22 January 2016 The National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2016 were passed and will come into effect on 1 April 2016. They effectively create a new higher rate of national minimum wage for employees aged 25 years and over and introduce steeper penalties for non-compliance. What does this mean &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/new-national-living-wage-now-how-does-that-compare-with-a-living-wage\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">New national living wage \u2013 now how does that compare with a living wage?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1863"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1865,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1863\/revisions\/1865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ramsaypaterson.co.uk\/legal-comment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}