The Social Charter initially defined what many UK campaigning groups termed the Council of Europe decency threshold in the 1960s as 68% of average earnings within a national economy. The definition was modified to that of 60% of net earnings (as of July 2004[update]) in order to take account of the difficulties experienced in taking into account initiatives such as redistributive tax systems when calculating adequate incomes.
There are a number of anomalies between the previous use of this threshold by UK campaigning groups and the way in which it is understood by the Secretariat of the European Social Charter. The exact origins of the term 'Council of Europe Decency Threshold' are vague, but it is said to be an incorrect term as the Council of Europe did not create it. It is therefore now more commonly referred to as the 'European Social Charter Adequate Remuneration Threshold' or ESCART.
Many pressure groups in the UK used the original method of calculation to call for a higher minimum wage. Before its closure, the Low Pay Unit used this threshold in campaigning in addition to calling for a minimum wage of half male median earnings, rising to 2/3 over the next few years. However, it (like many other organisations) had expressed reservations about the usefulness of the Threshold following the move to a definition of 60% of net average earnings, primarily because this was a far lower monetary amount than the Threshold as previously defined.
The Scottish Low Pay Unit, an independent organisation with similar aims to the now-defunct London based Low Pay Unit, continue to campaign for a higher National Minimum Wage in this way although they do not use the ESCART due to difficulties in obtaining accurate net earnings figures for the UK. They have also produced a briefing outlining the advantages and disadvantages of the calculation.
In the United States, Social Security is the commonly used term for the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program and is administered by the Social Security Administration. The original Social Security Act was signed into law by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, and the current version of the Act, as amended, encompasses several social welfare and social insurance programs.
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line or breadline, is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. Poverty line is usually calculated by finding the total cost of all the essential resources that an average human adult consumes in one year. The largest of these expenses is typically the rent required for accommodation, so historically, economists have paid particular attention to the real estate market and housing prices as a strong poverty line affect. Individual factors are often used to account for various circumstances, such as whether one is a parent, elderly, a child, married, etc. The poverty threshold may be adjusted annually. In practice, like the definition of poverty, the official or common understanding the poverty line is significantly higher in developed countries than in developing countries.
National Insurance (NI) is a fundamental component of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. It acts as a form of social security, since payment of NI contributions establishes entitlement to certain state benefits for workers and their families.
A wage is the distribution from an employer of a security paid to an employee. Like interest is paid out to an investor on his investments, a wage is paid to the employee on the employee's invested assets. Some examples of wage distributions include compensatory payments such as minimum wage, prevailing wage, and yearly bonuses, and remunerative payments such as prizes and tip payouts.
A living wage is defined as the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet his or her basic needs. This is not the same as a subsistence wage, which refers to a biological minimum. Needs are defined to include food, housing, and other essential needs such as clothing. The goal of a living wage is to allow a worker to afford a basic but decent standard of living through employment without government subsidies. Due to the flexible nature of the term "needs", there is not one universally accepted measure of what a living wage is and as such it varies by location and household type. A related concept is that of a family wage – one sufficient to not only support oneself, but also to raise a family.
A disability pension is a form of pension given to those people who are permanently or temporarily unable to work due to a disability.
A salary is a form of payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour, or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. From the point of view of running a business, salary can also be viewed as the cost of acquiring and retaining human resources for running operations, and is then termed personnel expense or salary expense. In accounting, salaries are recorded on payroll accounts.
National Energy Action (NEA) is a fuel poverty charity that works to eradicate fuel poverty and campaigns for greater investment in energy efficiency to help those who are poor or vulnerable gain affordable heat.
The working poor are working people whose incomes fall below a given poverty line due to low-income jobs and low familial household income. These are people who spend at least 27 weeks in a year working or looking for employment, but remain under the poverty threshold.
The National Minimum Wage Act 1998 creates a minimum wage across the United Kingdom. From 1 April 2019 this was £8.21 for people age 25 and over, £7.70 for 21- to 24-year-olds, £6.15 for 18- to 20-year-olds, £4.35 for people under 18 and £3.90 for apprentices.
Zero-hour contract is a term used to describe a type of employment contract between an employer and an employee whereby the employer is not obliged to provide any minimum number of working hours to the employee. The term 'zero-hour contract' is primarily used in the United Kingdom.
A significant portion of the population of the United Kingdom are considered to be in poverty under some measures of poverty.
The welfare trap theory asserts that taxation and welfare systems can jointly contribute to keep people on social insurance because the withdrawal of means-tested benefits that comes with entering low-paid work causes there to be no significant increase in total income. An individual sees that the opportunity cost of returning to work is too great for too little a financial return, and this can create a perverse incentive to not work.
European labour law regulates basic transnational standards of employment and partnership at work in the European Union and countries adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights. In setting regulatory floors to competition to for job-creating investment within the Union, and in promoting a degree of employee consultation in the workplace, European labour law is viewed as a pillar of the "European social model". Despite wide variation in employment protection and related welfare provision between member states, a contrast is typically drawn with conditions in the United States.
The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally considered to be paid less than men. There are two distinct numbers regarding the pay gap: non-adjusted versus adjusted pay gap. The latter typically takes into account differences in hours worked, occupations chosen, education and job experience. In the United States, for example, the non-adjusted average female's annual salary is 79% of the average male salary, compared to 95% for the adjusted average salary.
The working class comprises those engaged in waged or salaried labour, especially in manual-labour occupations and industrial work. Working-class occupations include blue-collar jobs, some white-collar jobs, and most pink-collar jobs. Members of the working class rely exclusively upon earnings from wage labour; thus, according to more inclusive definitions, the category can include almost all of the working population of industrialized economies, as well as those employed in the urban areas of non-industrialized economies or in the rural workforce.
The National Living Wage is an obligatory minimum wage payable to workers in the United Kingdom aged 25 and over which came into effect on 1 April 2016. As of April 2020 it is £8.72 per hour for those aged 25 and over, £8.20 for those aged 21–24, £6.45 for ages 18-20. Minimum wage for 16-17 is currently £4.55. It was implemented at a significantly higher rate than the preceding national minimum wage rate, and was expected to rise to at least £9 per hour by 2020. The consultation document issued by the Low Pay Commission in 2019 indicated that this target would not be met, instead proposing a figure of £8.67 per hour for the over 25 rate.
The Living Wage Foundation is a campaigning organisation in the United Kingdom which aims to persuade employers to pay a living wage. The organisation was established in 2011, publishes an annual Living Wage figure and accredits employers who pay the wage. From November 2018 the Living Wage rate is £9.00 per hour outside London and £10.55 per hour within London.
The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) is a research method developed in the UK, and now applied in other countries, to identify what incomes different types of households require to reach a socially acceptable living standard. The term has also been used to describe political criteria used openly or implicitly by some governments to assess the adequacy of income levels. MIS is the basis for the calculation of the UK living wage.
Gig workers are independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers and temporary workers. Gig workers enter into formal agreements with on-demand companies to provide services to the company's clients.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
