Get in touch Get in touch
Join Usdaw

View All Member support

All your questions answered

Help and advice

Join Usdaw today

Cost of Living

Jump to:

About this campaign

The cost of living in the UK, and across the world, has been rising since 2021, with a 41-year high rate of inflation back in October 2022. The rising cost of everyday essentials such as food and clothes, piled on top of the sky-high prices of electricity, gas and transport, has had a cumulative effect on working people in Britain and it has taken its toll on many.

A survey showed that our members felt they were much worse off in 2023 than they had been the year before, with 81.5% of members agreeing with that sentiment.

Tackling cost of living issues is a key priority for the Union. We’re campaigning for a New Deal for Workers to improve minimum wage and employment rights.

How to support the campaign

In order to help our Cost of Living campaign, we're calling on members to write to their MP to demand action on a new deal for workers. 

Debt Justice want to hear from members with an experience of debt. The Government is reviewing personal insolvency laws and we believe people who have experienced debt are best placed to know what needs to change. 

Still Struggling

Our 2023 Cost of Living Survey showed a much higher number of members who felt they’ve become worse off in the past 12 months than the previous two years before that.

Over three-quarters of people said they could not afford to take sick leave.

Implementing short-term measures to alleviate the crisis, in conjunction with a new deal for workers, will tackle rising costs and spiralling in-work poverty.

What we've achieved so far

In April 2024, the National Living Wage was increased to £11.44 for anyone aged 21 and up. This is a step in the right direction; however, we believe the NLW should be available for ages 18 and above.

We also believe wages should come in line with the ‘Real Living Wage’, which is set out by the Real Living Wage Foundation. That currently sits at £12.00 an hour around the country and £13.15 in London.

Statutory sick pay was also increased in April by 6.7%, meaning workers will be able to earn £116.75 per week whilst off sick. There still needs to be changes with payment not received for the first three days off illness and employees needing to earn at least £123 per week to claim it.

Cost of Living

"The economy is a key pillar of our everyday lives, it is a pillar that has been crumbling, thanks to years of mismanagement from this Government, and the impact on low paid workers has been huge. Food prices have soared, interest rates have gone up and energy costs have skyrocketed. All while living standards fell to a new low, leaving working people facing a cost of living crisis few could have imagined.

 

"A cost of living crisis brought about not by chance, but political choice. This Government has overseen the worst two periods of economic growth since the 1920s, with dire consequences for Usdaw members, and for working people across the UK." 

 

Paddy Lillis, Usdaw General Secretary

24 April 2024

"The weakness of our employment rights framework was fully exposed by the Tory three-year cost of living crisis. Usdaw’s own survey, last month, found that key workers in the retail industry, delivering essential services in the food supply chain, were themselves struggling to make ends meet. Nearly three-quarters said they are now worse off than at the 2019 general election. Today’s King’s Speech is the beginning of the end of a failing economy that does not work for working people."

 

Paddy Lillis, Usdaw General Secretary, on the Employment rights bill in the King's Speech

17 July 2024

"Today, we are looking to the new Labour Government to deliver the new deal Usdaw has long campaigned for. That includes changing the Low Pay Commission’s remit so that for the first time they take into account the cost of living, alongside ending rip-off youth rates. This is the transformational change that the country voted for, after 14 years of Tory chaos, austerity and attacks on workers’ rights."

 

Paddy Lillis, Usdaw General Secretary

17 July 2024

Publications

Cost of Living Survey Results 2023

25 April 2024

PDF

Labour's New Deal For Working People

25 April 2024

PDF

Worried about money? Know Your Rights (Leaflet 385)

16 April 2024

PDF eBook

Cost of Living (A5 flyer)

30 April 2024

PDF

Still Struggling

The Cost of Living Survey Results 2023

As the Government continues to try and sell the narrative that the cost of living crisis is coming to an end, Usdaw’s latest cost of living survey results tell a very different story.