Well raise the minimum wage so it does!
Isis Smyth, Liverpool South Socialist Party
Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch thinks that Keir Starmer’s scaled-back disability benefit cuts aren’t harsh enough. Instead of this, the Tory party wants to force disabled people into unfair or even dangerous working conditions by ripping away their benefits.
Badenoch also said that, compared to benefits, work doesn’t pay and that the UK needs to develop a stronger work ethic! She’s right about one thing: minimum wage work doesn’t pay anywhere near enough. The national minimum wage currently stands at £12.21 an hour, or around £23,000 a year working full time. This is simply not enough to live on and Labour’s 77p rise is a pittance compared to amount food, rents and everything has increased by.
But Badenoch knows nothing of the struggles that working-class people face. She earns over £90,000 a year!
The minimum wage should be raised to at least £15 for all age groups, not split into age bands as is the case now. Some young workers earn just £7 an hour now. As of December 2024, 2.7 million workers received Universal Credit (UC) in order to make ends meet. All should be paid a real living wage that would rise in line with the cost of living, so workers don’t have to have their wages topped up by UC, effectively subsidising bosses paying poverty wages.
As well as this, no disabled person should have to worry about how they’re going to make ends meet should their benefits be snatched from them. Those receiving benefits should feel a sense of security, and they should be able to live on them.
It’s becoming increasingly clear to thousands of workers that none of the establishment parties are willing to fight in their interests. In government, Labour and the Tories have attacked the working class just the same. A new mass workers’ party, armed with a socialist programme, would fight for the working class and put people over profit.
