Are you one of 500,000 people on minimum wage who are being UNDERPAID?
According to the Low Pay Commission, up to half a million people could be getting less than they should
The UK minimum wage increased on 1 April – upping incomes for the lowest-paid workers. Yet many who think they’re on the minimum wage are actually being paid LESS than they should.
What’s the minimum wage?
The minimum wage is the legal minimum an employer can pay anyone working in any UK nation, and the rate varies by age. The rate since 1 April 2022 is as follows:
✱ Apprentices: £4.81 ✱ Under-18s: £4.81 ✱ Age 18-20: £6.83 ✱ Age 21-22: £9.18 ✱ Age 23 and over: £9.50
Confusingly, back in 2015, the then Chancellor George Osborne announced he was renaming the ‘minimum wage’ for then over-25s (now over-23s) as the ‘national living wage’. I spoke out at the time, as this was stealing the brand of the Living Wage Foundation – a charity I’ve long supported.
Each year, the Living Wage Foundation announces its REAL living wage; a voluntary employers’ wage scheme, based on an assessment of the actual cost of living (and it’s due an update soon). Currently in the UK, it’s set at £9.90 per hour, except London where it’s £11.05 per hour – so higher than the minimum wage above – but not compulsory.
Almost 10,000 UK employers have pledged to pay the real living wage. You can check whether yours is one of them on livingwage.org.uk.
Reasons for underpayment
While bad bosses refusing to pay proper wages are an issue, most of the time, underpayments happen by mistake. Here are some of the reasons you may have been underpaid.
✱ DON’T THINK ‘I WORK FOR A BIG FIRM SO IT MUST BE CORRECT’. In 2021, 191 companies – including John Lewis, The Body Shop International and Sheffield United FC – were ‘named and shamed’ by the Government for failing to pay correctly.
✱ PAYING FOR A UNIFORM OR SAFETY EQUIPMENT WHICH TAKES YOU BELOW MINIMUM WAGE. This is a firms’ most common failing. If you have to buy a uniform or safety equipment and doing so takes your equivalent hourly salary under the minimum wage, your employer should cover the cost, so you still earn at least the minimum.
✱ EMPLOYERS CAN’T ‘TOP YOU UP’ WITH COMMISSION, TIPS, OR OVERTIME. Your base salary must at least be the legal minimum wage. If you’re commission-only, the firm must ensure that you receive at least the equivalent of minimum wage for the hours worked.
✱ YOU SHOULD BE PAID FOR ALL THE TIME YOU WORK. If you spend time going through security checks, doing handover meetings, being on call (at your workplace),
‘Most underpayments happen by mistake’
or closing/opening up your place of work, this is work and should be hours you’re paid for. If not, you’re owed money. This also includes travel time if it’s part of your job, such as a care worker doing home visits.
✱ IF YOUR EMPLOYER PROVIDES YOU ACCOMMODATION, IT CAN REDUCE YOUR PAY – BUT ONLY BY A SET AMOUNT. The rules on this are complicated, so I suggest if you’re in this situation, you read the full rules at moneysavingexpert.com/ national minimum wage. Yet simply, if your employer provides you accommodation, this can be taken into account when working out whether you’ve been paid the correct minimum wage or not – and you could be paid less than the minimum wage.
✱ YOU SHOULD GET A PAY RISE EVERY YEAR ON 1 APRIL, AND SEE AN INCREASE WHEN YOU TURN 18, 21 AND 23. The national minimum wage increases every year on 1 April, so you should expect to receive a pay rise from the first full-pay cycle after an increase comes in.
✱ DON’T ACCEPT THE LOWER APPRENTICE RATE IF YOU’RE NOT ACTUALLY AN APPRENTICE. To be classed as an ‘apprentice’, your contract must include some form of paid, structured training time. If it doesn’t, you should legally be paid the minimum wage, rather than the lower apprentice wage (currently set at £4.81 per hour) – even if you’re called an ‘apprentice’ by the company you work for. Or, if you’re 19 and over and have completed the first year of your apprenticeship, you should also be paid the minimum wage.
Check if you’re affected
If you think you are being (or were being) underpaid, you’ve a legal right to be paid more and to back pay (for a maximum of six years). First, do a couple of online checks. Use the Government’s gov.uk/am-i-gettingminimum-wage calculator to help you check what you should be getting paid. Or call the free ACAS helpline on 0300 123 1100. It can’t provide legal advice, but can provide general advice and explain the risks and benefits of going forward with your complaint.
Then, if you feel comfortable, approach your employer and ask them if they’ve made a mistake.
Or, if you prefer, ask HMRC to contact them (you’ll remain anonymous) – you can submit a quick form on gov.uk.
✱ Martin Lewis is the founder and chair of Money saving expert. To join the 7.5 million people who get his free Money Tips weekly email, go to moneysavingexpert.com/latesttip
‘Nothing is off limits’
Karen Weiner, 56, is a divorce lawyer who lives in Borehamwood with her husband Marc, 56. I met my ex-husband at uni when I was 19 and we got married just before my 25th birthday. After two children, now aged 24 and 17, and the untimely death of my father, I realised how unhappy I was in a marriage where we were basically just friends. For years, there hadn’t been any intimacy between us and we even slept in separate bedrooms.
Then, in 2018, I decided I wanted a divorce and a year later, I finally moved out.
During this time, I joined a Jewish dating app and a whole new world opened up to me. Men were suddenly paying me attention and I felt my confidence soar. Once I went on five dates in two days. It was so much fun.
Having sex again, though, was absolutely terrifying. I hadn’t taken my clothes off in front of a man for a long time and, like most women, I’m quite body conscious. To help me feel good about myself,
I splurged on lacy lingerie and finally
I felt desired and attractive.
It felt so natural
In 2019, I met Marc, then 53, on the Plenty of Fish dating app. We hit it off immediately and spent the entire evening talking. It felt so natural – that’s how I knew I was falling in love.
The sex was amazing. He is very physical and as I can be bossy at work it’s nice to let go in the bedroom and let him take charge. We went to Ann Summers and he bought me a matching black bra and pants. The first time I put it on in front of him, I was so nervous. But at the same time it was incredibly exciting. Through Marc I’ve rediscovered sex. We talk openly about everything and
I’m not shy about expressing what it is I want. Nothing is off limits and we love to use role-play. Marc and I moved in together during lockdown 2021 and on Valentine’s Day, he got down on one knee and proposed. We were married in a civil ceremony then, in May this year, we had a big Jewish wedding. Marc is my best friend, lover, partner and soulmate. To experience so much passion in a partnership has made me feel like a woman again. Today I’m enjoying a much better sex life and I couldn’t be happier both mentally and physically.
Abbey Robb, 43, is an integrative therapist who lives in London
It wasn’t until I moved to London from Australia in 2016 that I became solo polyamorous, which means that I’m drawn to, and engage in, meaningful connections with different men. I’d just come out of a series of toxic relationships and felt I had to stop looking for that idealised notion we all have of what a relationship should look like.
Sometimes I have several relationships concurrently– at other times I spend long periods single. I use the dating app OK Cupid, which has a large polyamorous community. Everyone does it slightly differently so it’s important to talk about expectations. I dated a man whose wife was asexual and they’d decided to open up their marriage so his sexual needs were met. It was going well until she said she wasn’t comfortable with the situation, so he ended things.
Fulfilling sex
Right now, I’m seeing two-and-a-half men. I refer to the one man as ‘half’ as there’s nothing physical between us. We meet for dinner or to see a show. But I’m having sex with the others, not necessarily on the same day, and they know about each other.
There is this culture around sex that says you’re supposed to save yourself or sleep with just one person but if you’re careful about who you have sex with, don’t spread diseases or randomly have babies, who cares who you’re sharing your bed with?
The sex I have now is more fulfilling as, with age, I’ve learnt how to communicate to ensure my sexual needs are met. When you approach sex from an empowered position and engage in the act because it’s something you want, rather than thinking it will give you something else, like an emotional bond, sex becomes so much better.
It is not to say I never want to give somebody more than just sex, because
I do. I’m not in love – which is why these two-and-a-half relationships are unlikely to translate into being anything else –but could I ever be in love? Maybe. Who knows what the future might bring.