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'Nearly half' of jobs in some areas do not pay living wage
Nearly half of jobs in some part of Britain are failing to pay the living wage, a leading trade union has warned. The TUC said figures showed between 20-50% of workers were not earning enough money to live off, depending on the constituency .
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Graduate: 'I feel like my life is on hold for now'
A graduate who is not making a living wage told Daybreak how her "life is on hold" until she is able to get better paid work.
Penny Cook, 24, graduated with a first but has been unable to find full time work and earns £7 per hour in a retail job.
South of England has 'most underpaid workers'
The three constituencies with the most workers earning less than the living wage are all in the south of England, according to figures from the TUC.
They are:
- Kingswood, near Bristol has 48% of constituents working for less than the living wage.
- London's Chingford and Woodford Green have 43.4% of constituents working for less than a liveable wage.
- Harrow West had 42.4%.
- However, other London constituencies had the lowest number of underpaid workers. In Poplar and Limehouse on 5.6% of the population earned less than £8.80 per hour.
- Runneymede and Weybridge had only 5.8%.
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'Almost half' of jobs in some parts pay under living wage
Almost 50% of the jobs on offer in some parts of the UK are paying less than the living wage, according to data from a leading trade union.
The TUC said a breakdown of official figures showed around 20% of workers were taking home less than the living wage for the area they lived in.
However, in some constituencies this rose to 50%.
The TUC said this amounted to five million people working for less than the living wage, with some of the worst offending areas in parts of outer London.
The living wage comes in at £8.80 per hour in London and £7.65 for the rest of the country.