In response to the findings of the Living Wage Commission report, Janet Morrison, Chief Executive of Independent Age, said:
“We welcome the Living Wage Commission’s aspiration that 1 million more people should be paid the Living Wage by 2020. Workers in the social care sector should be a priority for action since up to 220,000 are not even paid the National Minimum Wage let alone a Living Wage. Action will require fundamental reform since the root cause of low pay in the social care sector is chronic under-funding. One of its consequences is that many of the people we rely on to look after our Mums and Dads when they get old are paid rates that simply don’t reflect the challenging work they do”.