TUC launch campaign for £15 per hour national minimum wage

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) have launched their campaign for a significant increase in the UK national minimum wage to £15 per hour.

They want this increase to happen as soon as possible and argue that it should apply to workers of all ages.

In their press release, they argued that "Businesses are making record profits and handing massive payouts to executives: they can afford to pay higher wages."

I'm sure there are many thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises that would take issue with this - the medium level of profit such businesses is only a few thousand pounds a year much of which risks being swallowed up by the huge increase in energy prices that risks causing a flood of business failures in the weeks and months ahead.

But the debate over the minimum wage is a live one and an issue bound to engender the interest of student economists.

Just last year, the annual rate for workers aged 23 years and above rose 6% to £9.51 per hour - one of the biggest jumps in the minimum wage since it was first introduced in 1999.

But events have moved on quickly the the surge in the cost of living - which many claim is hitting lower-income families even harder than those on average incomes - means that the real wage of the minimum wage is set to fall sharply as we head into 2023.

A higher minimum wage - if employment remained relatively stable - could help to maintain consumer demand for goods and services and make a contribution to families meeting soaring food and energy bills.

But naturally there are important arguments here about both the scale of any minimum wage rise and also the timing.

In this video we walk through the structure of answering an Edexcel Paper 3 question on the micro and macro effects of an increase in the UK minimum wage.