Minimum Wage to Rise, but the Age Gap Stops Closing
Tomorrow’s Budget is expected to raise the minimum wage by 3.9% for every adult band. That is the point of contention: because younger workers get the same percentage rather than a larger one, the gap between them and older workers stops narrowing, and a manifesto promise to abolish age bands altogether recedes.
The 2024 manifesto promised to remove “discriminatory age bands” so that all adults were entitled to the same minimum wage, and for two years the government delivered on it by raising the youth rate faster — 26% since 2024. An equal percentage rise does the opposite: in cash terms the gap widens. The business secretary’s defence is that timing was never promised: “The manifesto pledge on equalisation still applies but we were always clear it could happen over time.” A union leader called it “deeply unfair” to keep paying different rates for the same job. Two cautions belong with this. The specific rates in circulation — the 18-to-20 band going from £10.85 to about £11.27, and the rate for those 21 and over from £12.71 to £13.20 — originate with a newspaper that is not on our approved list and reach us only second-hand, so they are reported rather than confirmed. And the whole package remains a Budget expectation until the chancellor stands up tomorrow.