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Time to make amends to the low-paid essential worker

Geoff Riley

2nd April 2020

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This is a searing and timely call to arms from Sarah O'Connor in the Financial Times.

There are hundreds of thousands of workers in key services whose social value is now rightly being applauded and cherished but whose wages and earnings lag well behind any mean or median threshold.

They are part of the precariat - workers facing uncertain hours and incomes, living from week to week with little to no savings.

O'Connor writes: "Coronavirus has forced us to rethink who we value and how. Some of the workers we have left to languish in low-paid and insecure jobs are the very ones we cannot live without. It’s not just time to be grateful. It’s time to make amends."

Will there been a move towards lifting the pay of these essential workers when we emerge from the crisis? Are we prepared to pay higher prices and taxes to make it happen?

Please read: https://www.ft.com/content/2b34269a-73f8-11ea-95fe-fcd274e920ca

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Geoff Riley

Geoff Riley FRSA has been teaching Economics for nearly forty years. He has over twenty years experience as Head of Economics at leading schools. He writes extensively and is a contributor and presenter on CPD and Revision conferences in the UK and overseas.