TUC highlights fact that women workers are hit particularly badly by low pay One fifth of Ashford employees earning less than the living wage

More than 20% of people in Ashford are paid less than the living wage, according to new research.

But while that may seem a high figure to many it is below the figure for Thanet which has the highest percentage for Kent.

Some 27.2% of employees in the area covering Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs were paid less than £7.45 an hour, according to figures published by the TUC.

However, Thanet’s number of sub-living wage employees was way off the highest percentage for the South East in the figures covering April 2013.

That honour went to Arun in West Sussex at 31.6%, although the outer London authorities of Bexley (34.4%) and Harrow (33.5%) were higher.

Canterbury was Kent’s next blackspot, with 25.2% of all employees earning below the living wage. Next was Maidstone on 24.2%.

By contrast, the affluent areas of Sevenoaks (15.9%), Tonbridge and Malling (15.9%) and Tunbridge Wells (12.8%) had the lowest number of total employees earning below the threshold.

Most local authorities hovered just above the 20% mark, with Gravesham on 23.8%, Shepway on 23.2%, Dover on 23.1%, Swale on 21.8% and Ashford on 20.6%. Medway, which has Kent’s longest dole queues, had the comparitively low figure of 18.5% of people earning below the living wage, followed by Dartford on 16.8%.

The study indicates that women fare far worse than men, and many local authorities’ data samples for men were unreliable because the numbers earning below the living wage were so low.

The highest proportion of women earning below the threshold was in Swale at 34.1%, fol- lowed by Gravesham on 33.2% and Shepway on 32.1%.

TUC Regional Secretary for the South East of England Megan Dobney said: “This research blows a massive hole in the myth that all workers in the South East are well-off.

“In-work poverty is growing across the South East, and it’s often women that are bearing the brunt of low pay.

“The Living Wage was created so that work can provide workers with a decent standard of living.

“But in places like Kent and East and West Sussex, low paid work for women is a route into poverty rather than a route out of poverty.

“Women would gain most from a greater take-up and implementation of the Living Wage.

“Councils can lead the way by becoming Living Wage employers themselves. But they also need to work with employers and unions to use the Living Wage to tackle in-work poverty.”

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The official figure for the living wage is currently £7.45 an hour